Bringing live music to Great Ormond Street Hospital has been a real highlight of The Spitz development and expansion over the last few years. It’s an interesting and sometimes difficult juxtaposition of emotions and circumstances. Absolute joy and excitement and the innocence and curiosity of youth sit alongside (sometimes terminal) illness, loneliness, worry on the part of parents, boredom and grief. Spitz musicians have the privilege of bringing a bit of light to these dark experiences for those who we meet there. Supported by The Arts Council and The Utley Foundation we have been able to visit once a week, forging relationships with families and parents.

On 7th May we doubled up. Marcus Bonfanti in the morning and Izo Fitzroy in the afternoon.

In the morning Marcus visited Pelican Ward where we discussed Disney Princess with SG and sang songs from Moana, The Little Mermaid and Frozen. Before we left we were stopping by a maintenance engineer “How About Some Paul Weller!?” Renditions of Weller’s Wild Wood and You Do Something To Me seemed to hit the spot. “What a talent, keep up the good work, mate.”

Let It Go from Frozen is possibly the song we get requested the most. Woe betide the musician who enters GOSH without having this classic in their repertoire….

On Bear ward we had what can only be described as a proper tear-up with C, P and K, as well as their parents. Old MacDonald Had A Farrm culminated in the perfectly timed appearance of one of the GOSH therapy dogs just as we were “woof woofing here” and “woof woofing there”. We decided that “and on that farm he had an elephant” might be tempting fate!

A young couple with their daughter arrived in a bay as we were leaving. Following a rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star mum said “She was so agitated just now and look her now, she’s so calm. Thank you.”

In the afternoon, Izo visited Falcon, Caterpillar and Squirrel Ward. We met a 14 year old boy who declared that he played guitar too. This needed to be good. While hesitant to name specific artisits we did glean the fact that he liked classic rock. Bon Jovi’s Living On A Prayer and Queen’s We Are The Champions were deemed acceptable.