Views from I Staircase

When current Master Loretta Minghella was a student living in Memorial Court in 1981, she occupied I12, a second-floor room with a wonderful aspect of Ashby Court (then known simply as Memorial Court before the later addition of the Forbes Mellon Library). First-year Music student Daniel Liu is the current occupant of I12, and when the two sat down together to compare their experiences, one important, perhaps unexpected, change soon presented itself: that I12 is now a different room entirely. At some point in Memorial Court’s recent past, Rooms I12 and I13, next-door neighbours on I staircase, were switched, no doubt for a very sage reason which has since become lost to history. Daniel’s room instead enjoys a lovely view facing south towards Thirkill Court.

Still, Loretta and Daniel have plenty of interests to share, among them their mutual passion for music. Daniel is an exemplary pianist; he started playing the piano after he was offered free lessons at a Chinese Sunday school at the age of five. He went on to attend a specialist music school in Manchester, and has already become a key part of Clare’s vibrant musical life. “I’ve performed in a few lunchtime concerts at Clare, and was part of a competition at West Road Concert Hall. I love the fact that if you need a pianist you can just pop up the stairs and knock on my door,” Daniel says.

Loretta also began playing the piano, among several other instruments, at a very young age, having grown up in a home that was always filled with music. As an adult, she has had fewer opportunities to play. “This is very embarrassing View to admit in front of a pianist like you,” she says to Daniel, “but I now have to put the pedal down to hide all the things I can’t do!” She intends to take up the instrument again once she is able to move back into the Master’s Lodge in 2023. “Music for me has always been a source of great pleasure, and it’s been such a privilege to come back to hear people like Daniel play, and colleagues and friends singing in the Chapel. It lifts my spirits hugely,” Loretta says.

"I love the fact that if you need a pianist you can just pop up the stairs and knock on my door.”

Loretta and Daniel, both the British-born children of parents raised outside the UK, also have a shared understanding of the unique cultural language of music. “Culturally, I feel very mixed,” says Loretta, whose family is Italian. “When I first went to Rome, even though I don’t speak Italian fluently at all, I felt extraordinarily at home. It’s a connection that you can’t really describe, and I have that same experience with music. It just touches you in a really visceral way.” Daniel’s parents are originally from north-east China. “As a kid, I could speak Mandarin, but I haven’t spoken it in a while. I do feel like language and culture are so linked – perhaps I’d feel more connected to Chinese culture if I knew the language better. Part of our course is looking at music from other cultures, and it’s amazing how something completely different to what you’re used to can touch you in different ways. I think it must tap into something we all share as humans.”

Daniel chose to attend Clare after considering institutions such as Juilliard and the Royal Academy because of the opportunities it provided to meet students of different disciplines. “I suppose I wanted to have a broader view on music, and on the world.” Reflecting on this, as well as the other reasons students are drawn towards Clare, Loretta can see many similarities between now and the time she was an undergraduate. “Clare is an incredibly beautiful place. It’s centrally placed, but tucked away. Clare Bridge is the most romantic bridge in the world. And in my day it was known as a place which welcomed everyone. Lots of colleges then still didn’t welcome women at all.”

above:
Pieced together photos of Memorial Court, taken from the perspective of the UL before the Forbes Mellon Library was built, by alumnus Anthony Davis (1981).

“What was that like for you as a student? I can’t imagine that this tolerant, friendly atmosphere came about overnight,” Daniel asks Loretta. “If you looked back to just a few decades before I came to Clare, it would have been unimaginable for women to be here,” she says. “I think that those women who came up in 1972 were very brave to be the trailblazers that they were, because they must have felt like a bit of an oddity. But by 1981, nobody was asking ‘What are the women doing here?’ It could sometimes feel more hostile out and about in the wider University, where in other colleges the arguments over letting women in were still going on, but I didn’t have that experience at Clare at all.”

Students from Daniel’s cohort are experiencing Clare during a time when much of its most iconic spaces are inaccessible due to the ongoing restoration works in Old Court. The Buttery is currently operating out of a temporary structure in the centre of Old Court, though for Daniel, just as it was for Loretta, it still represents an important social hub to meet friends and relax. The works to Old Court will vastly improve accessibility for those with mobility issues, providing step-free access for the first time in our history to the Hall, the SCR and the Fellows’ Library. The project will add further facilities for socialising, study and dining in the form of the new River Room facing on to the Cam. “I think those social spaces are so important for creating the College’s friendly atmosphere. I can’t wait to see even more of that at Clare,” says Daniel.

"I think that those women who came up in 1972 were very brave to be the trailblazers that they were, because they must have felt like a bit of an oddity.”

Exciting plans are also underway to transform the Hall into a far more versatile venue for performance. Loretta recalls a magical experience from her time as a student, when her contemporary, the renowned pianist Andrew West (1981), performed a concerto in the space as part of an annual event. With the largest of the tables currently occupying the Hall requiring eight hands to move, it is little wonder that this has so far been such an infrequent occurrence at Clare. The proposed plans, which will encompass furniture, lighting and acoustics, will give Clare’s gifted musicians, like Daniel, many more chances to share their talents with the rest of the College. “I’ve got goosebumps just thinking about it,” Loretta says.