News

Pam Wedgwood makes half a million!

14.07.04

Pam Wedgwood – composer, arranger, teacher, performer and raconteur – has just clocked up her half-millionth sale!   

Pam began her illustrious music career on the recorder whilst at primary school. By the age of 10, she had moved on to lessons on the tenor horn and the piano before adding cello and euphonium by her early teens. In her spare time (when not taking music or classroom lessons), Pam also showed great prowess in sport – running, hockey, javelin and sailing all vied for her time – but as she puts it herself: “I was always very competitive!”            

Making the French Horn her first instrument, Pam auditioned for and achieved a place at Trinity College London, where she also continued studies on the cello and piano. Shortly after graduation, she became Co-Principal Horn with the Royal Ballet. 

Not content with just music, Pam rekindled her interest in sailing and crewed the National Championships in a “Fireball” as well as sailing in Flying Fifteens, Enterprises, Wayfarers and Merlin Rockets – all done while maintaining a freelance career taking in not only the Opera House, but West End Shows and other varied musical performances.

Even the advent of motherhood couldn’t slow Pam down, as with two young sons, Pam concentrated on teaching and founded her own music school (which actually operated from her house). She opened a music shop in Chertsey, in the early 1980s, but had to close it down because a local superstore owned the lease! She also found time to run the London Marathon in a very respectable 4 hours and 20 minutes.

It was around this time that Pam Wedgwood – the composer – emerged, with the publication of her first book Brass Routes, a beginner tutor for trumpet and cornet. Pam’s long and successful partnership with Faber Music began in 1989 with a series of publications entitled Jazzin’ About (now consisting of 35 books). This was soon followed by two other successful series: It’s never too late to play piano and Up-Grade! (a further 20 books over the two series). More recently, Pam has written a recorder method called RecorderWorld, a new series of sophisticated jazz pieces in After Hours, as well as collaborating with fellow composers and lyricists John Miller, Debbie Needle, Fay Gregory and Caroline Lumsden in music for brass, classroom and strings. Her most recent collaboration is with young piano teacher, Melissa Bastin, in the highly successful Piano for the Young Football Fanatic. Pam Wedgwood also writes under the name of Louise Chamberlain and has a newly published series called Step it up!    

Alongside all this composition, Pam still takes part in many sporting activities and has completed a triathlon (half-mile swim, 50-mile cycle, half-marathon), cycled Lands End to John O’Groats, done a parachute jump, sailed around the coast of Southern England in a tall ship and cycled the length of Ireland for charity. Her work with Faber Music has recently taken her to Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia and when she’s not writing or touring she relaxes on her recently acquired 32-ft narrow boat, which bears the name “After Hours”. 

In May 2004, Pam Wedgwood achieved a very remarkable milestone by making sales of over 500,000 copies of her 82 titles published by Faber Music. There is much more to come, but one important future publication is a collaboration with her extremely talented musician sons, Oliver and Sam entitled Wedgwood Blue – a collection of jazz pieces for pianists.