Hugh Philpott meets the multi-talented Neil McLaren.

I’m in Lewes. It’s grey and it’s Monday morning. I am heading along the High Street to ‘The Workshop’, where a collective of artisan jewellers ply their craft. I’m looking forward to catching up with professional flautist, Neil McLaren.

For many years Neil has been wowing audiences with the ease of his fluid Baroque trills and runs. He has long experience of playing under the baton of celebrity conductors all around the world. And, happily for his Sussex fans, he also finds time to perform in more intimate chamber settings nearer to home.

As if being a busy professional musician were not enough, Neil also wields a nigh-on alchemical magic with precious metals and gemstones, in a 10th-century basement which literally reaches under Lewes Castle’s walls. I have arranged to meet him here today.

Neil is waiting for me, in the ground-floor shopfront of the establishment, where finished products are arranged for sale (mindful of a forthcoming anniversary, I decide to take a proper look on the way out).

“Come down into the cave,” he says. “I’ll show you what I’m working on.”

He has already been at the bench for several hours by now and is eager to show me something he is creating. He leads me down a narrow staircase, into the ancient, rather dingy cellar, to his wooden bench, where his work in progress sparkles under a spotlight.

“What do you think? Of course, it’s not finished, but you can see where it’s going and how it’s shaping up. It’s part of a secret project I am working on.”

I sit down in a spare seat. He grins conspiratorially, while I admire the almost completed piece, a one-off, like all Neil’s work. I sense its drama and tension, but also its delicacy. Perhaps clues to what or whom it represents. I press him on who he’s making it for. He gives in, reluctantly.

“It’s part of a set I am making exclusively for the Glyndebourne shop. The brief is to design and make six pieces of jewellery, each of which represents one of the six productions in this year’s season. The launch of each will coincide with the season premieres of the operas. It’s all very exciting, particularly as I shall playing in the orchestra as well.”

As with everything he does, Neil’s approach to jewellery design and construction is very serious. He talks in detail about sets, music, and plot lines, and reflects on how he interprets all of that and more in his jewellery. It is clear to me that his connections and links with Glyndebourne Festival Opera are deep and go back years.

“I have been fortunate to have had a long-standing relationship with Glyndebourne. Come to think of it I have played flute there, and piccolo when required, every full season since 1989. I feel a great sense of privilege to have been among the musicians with Sir Simon Rattle, when he conducted Glyndebourne’s first historically informed performance. It was big news. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment were playing, and we created something very special. Of course, the OAE have been back many times since that first Figaro, but I feel very proud to have been in at the beginning.”

Neil picks up a recently completed silver snake-like chain and examines it under the powerful lamplight. He pairs it with another, already complete. He then deftly slides into place a large milk-striped Carnelian cabochon in a deep silver setting. It is a bold piece.

“Opera demands this sort of boldness: particularly the scene which inspires this set. There will also be earrings and cufflinks in the finished suite of jewellery. I managed to source a nice group of stones which work well together.”

The sensuous silver intertwining ropes suggest lovers, and the creamy white stripes, against the sunset red of the Carnelian, scream clouds and a fiery sun. It’s got to be Semele, I venture. Neil remains poker-faced. All will be revealed in good time.

This season, of course, Neil will be back with the OAE at Glyndebourne, for a brand-new Don Giovanni. How does he manage to fit jewellery-making in with all his other musical commitments. And how long has he been doing it?”

“Let me think. It feels like forever. I have always been creative and always need to be making something, whether it’s tangible like this necklace, or intangible like my music. I have always searched for perfection and beauty in everything I do.”

With a knowing grin, Neil takes a moment to cover up the drawings he’s made for the rest of the Glyndebourne collection, which he’s noticed I’ve been admiring. Perhaps my Semele guess was too close for comfort.

“I made my first metalwork piece at school in Plymouth. I remember I made a copper caddy spoon. I felt connected straight away to the material. It felt easy and pliable in my hands. It allowed me to be in a world of my own.”

“Music was also important to me from an early age. In the beginning it was the violin. That’s where I started. But if anything, in that period, it was the music that got in the way of my metalwork. I gave up violin at 16 and switched to flute. I suppose that was relatively late. But it felt right to me. It all happened almost by accident. I found an unallocated flute lying at the pack of the instrument cupboard at school. A few years later I was at music college. For better or worse I’m a bit of a perfectionist. If I am going to do something, I have to do it well, otherwise I’m not going to bother. Metalwork fell very much into second place at that time.”

Neil pulls out an unbelievably delicate chain from his work box. It looks special. Another part of the commission perhaps? Like the handmade links of this supple silver chain, the Glyndebourne commission provides a seamless link between his two worlds.

“I suppose it was one day in the early nineties, when I got back into metalwork and jewellery-making seriously. The OAE was rehearsing at Morley College in London. There was a jewellerymaking course running at the time. I got back into it quickly and gained an excellent reputation at the various important exhibitions and design shows I attended. I kept that up until 1998. It was an exciting time, but I then had to stop.”

Neil looks down at the drawings and designs in his hands.

“In 1998 my sister died, after a short illness, while still very young. I was in the middle of making her a necklace, a bit like this one. Every link handmade, which is one of my specialities. I just stopped making it. I stopped making anything. I couldn’t go on.”

We both stare at the work in progress on the bench. I remain quiet.

“It wasn’t until lockdown in 2020, when clearing out the garage, that I found my jewellery-making tools and unfinished work. I decided I was ready to start again. It had taken 22 years, but at last it felt right again.”

Then Neil tells me about his own battle with an incurable cancer. I wonder whether this goes some way to explain how his life is so full. There is no time to waste.

“It can be hard. It can tire me out, but I am always committed one hundred percent to the job before me. Whatever it might be. I pace myself. It doesn’t matter if it is here at the bench making a ring or brooch, or in a concert hall in some new far-off city. Whatever it is, the product has to be the best I can make it.”

The moment isn’t sad. It is inspiring. Neil starts getting his tools ready, so he can get back to work. The clock is ticking on the Glyndebourne commissions. And time must be found to practice for his next performance, in a few days’ time, at the London Handel Festival.

For commissions Neil McLaren can be found through The Workshop, Lewes or his website neilmclarenjewellery.co.uk. Neil will be playing his flute in Glyndebourne’s new Don Giovanni, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.