‘I regretted it every year’: South Shields man lands dream music role 20 years after giving up his passion

A man from South Shields has managed to make a career out of his passion for music after spending 20 years away from the piano.

Philip Alexander, 39, gave up piano lessons at 13. “I was at that age where I lost interest because I just wanted to run around with my mates and had no time to sit and play classical music on the piano,” laughs Philip.

It’s a story all too familiar to most of us- giving up a skill in the name of hanging out with friends which, to teenagers, is the most important thing a person can do.

“I regretted it every year, but never took that step to get back into it.”

Philip has had many jobs over the years: working as a lab technician, in the RAF, on the lines at Nissan and eventually joining Virgin.

“I could never settle and couldn’t work out why,” said Philip. But that all started to change when he met his wife, Jaz. She had an old keyboard she didn’t use anymore and gave it to him to try and reignite his childhood passion.

So he took lessons and met a man called Stuart Angus who saw Philip’s potential and offered him a full-time job as a tutor at his company Side by Side Arts, a performing arts community interest company.

That was four years ago. Philip was able to continue doing the odd tutoring gig for Side by Side but couldn’t take up the position because of family issues and it would mean taking a significant pay cut.

“But as time went on, my mental health took a really big hit and it started to decline,” he said. “But over the past 6-8 months, the problems that were stopping me beforehand really started to disappear.”

This coincided with Philip being offered the job again. This time the offer was to tutor alongside helping to develop the business

“As soon as he asked me I immediately said yes and handed my notice in,” laughs Philip.

Philip’s journey back to music hasn’t been a linear one, his life has had many twists and turns before re-finding his passion. But this is something that adds to his ability as a tutor and musician.

“We get a lot of students who say they don’t want to do it anymore and I always tell them what happened to me,” he says. “How I regretted it for 20 years.”

Philip also composes his own music: cinematic solo piano. His dream is to write the score for a film one day.

After starting again, Philip has his whole life and career ahead of him.

As he says, “I really can’t wait to see what the next 20 years bring.”

You can listen to Philip’s music here.