Daughter sets up music project in memory of father

Caroline Speca set up Musical Lifelines in Bungay after her father died from Parkinson's disease

A creative music project has been helping to tackle loneliness and support people living with long-term health conditions in a community.

Caroline Speca, 49, a classical violinist and music educator, set up Musical Lifelines in Bungay, Suffolk, last autumn after her father, Bryan Clarke, died from Parkinson's disease.

The free music workshop is open to all ages, but is especially designed to suit older people feeling isolated and those living with conditions such as Parkinson’s and dementia.

Mrs Speca said her father's illness inspired her to start the community project to help people achieve "a greater sense of wellbeing, both physically and emotionally".

Caroline Speca wants to take classical music out of the concert hall and into the community

Mrs Speca said: "My father sadly died in February 2023 and I felt an enormous hole in my life and that hole I filled by putting something back into the community that I felt he would have really benefitted from.

"After the first session last September I was so relieved I had done it and I was in floods of tears, but in a good way, because my father would have been so proud that something good had come out of something that was so traumatic for the family.

"Anybody is welcome to come along to our sessions and it's growing and it's wonderful to see so many people blossoming and friendships being made. Music is just the catalyst because it's so much more than that."

Mrs Speca attended the Suffolk Youth Orchestra and studied the violin at the Guildhall School of Music before attaining her "dream job" in the orchestra of the Royal Opera House.

"Fourteen years later I returned to Suffolk with a postgraduate qualification in music for dementia and another in music and creative health."