00:00 Your Royal Highness, Lord Lieutenant, ladies and gentlemen, a tremendous amount of work
00:21 and dedication has gone into restoring this beautiful historic building and as we look
00:29 around today the amazing and exciting capability it brings with it. The Defence Estate Optimisation
00:36 Programme is the largest change programme in Defence and this project within that programme
00:42 is a shining example of what can be done. Today marks not only the opening of the combined
00:51 School of Music but also the joint venture between the Royal Marines School of Music
00:57 and the Army School of Music which not only safeguards this historic building here in the
01:05 naval base but also future-proofs it for the training of music within the naval base which
01:12 I personally am very excited about. I would like to extend my thanks to all of those who've worked
01:19 so hard on this project over the years and I'd like to invite Your Royal Highness the Commodore
01:25 in Chief of Portsmouth Naval Base to officially open the Alford Schools of Music.
01:31 I'm delighted and thank you for the invitation. It's a pleasure. I've had the opportunity to see
01:38 where you're going. You will enjoy it and I'm perfectly certain it will do wonderful to study
01:42 although you can't get much higher. Please enjoy your new facilities.
01:48 Thank you.
01:49 [Music]
02:13 So I mean how has today been? It's a big day isn't it for you guys?
02:18 Yeah it was it was really it was pretty special especially because
02:21 being a trainee you know that you're going to be going out and doing this once you've joined a band
02:26 but you never expect yourself to do it when you're in training so it was very very nice to do it.
02:31 And obviously you got to speak to Frances. How was that?
02:39 Yeah it was a bit nerve-wracking but she was lovely and it was very there was a lot of privilege
02:43 behind it a lot of pride. She does a lot for the military so it was it was lovely just to be able
02:49 to speak to her and just get interested and know what we would do around here yeah.
02:54 And you know what's the future for you? Where would you want to go?
02:59 Once I complete my training here which I'm hoping to do soon I'll be going out to band and then
03:05 hopefully doing more of the kind of events that happen today outside of the training facilities.
03:12 And have you seen the new? No we've not been in time yet.
03:16 And how are you feeling? Have you got high expectations?
03:22 I have high expectations yeah a lot of work has been put into it and it was a good and
03:28 reliable building before so I can imagine it's only got some better.
03:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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