“One sweet dream came true today / Came true today / Came true today (yes, it did)” – The Beatles

A quiet reverence stirs the silence of Studio One at Abbey Road as members of the London Symphony Orchestra arrive, one by one, and unpack and ready their instruments. A violinist takes her first gentle pull of the bow across the strings and the sound sings out – not loud, but perfect amongst the rattle of percussion, near the swiping, fingered frets of a cello, just pinpointedly alone – precision in sound.

A few chairs away from where I sit observing from the balcony stands oboist Kirstin Myers, flipping nervously through sheets of music, lists of donor names, and a welcome speech. On the stairs down from the balcony to the recording studio floor sits pianist Frances Drost, collecting her thoughts and emotions in solitude. The women, who play together as the classical duo called Double Keyed, are ready to make their dream come true – years in the making. 

“Believe me when I tell you”

On April 1, I opened my inbox to find an email from Abbey Road Studios. “Welcome Home” was splashed across an image of the legendary studio’s entrance. Recording of Double Keyed’s new album was eight days away, and I was set to follow along and write about their journey. “Our home is your home, so please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you make the most of your time with us. We have a restaurant and private garden, which are yours to relax in …” read the email.

The day before, I sat down with Kirstin and Frances inside the Blair Music Center at Lebanon Valley College, which serves as a practice location for the duo. Away from Double Keyed, Kirstin is an Ephrata resident who balances family, teaching and a life as a professional oboist with the York Symphony Orchestra and Berks Sinfonietta; she is an adjunct professor at LVC and York College and a faculty member at Dickinson College. 

Frances, who lives in Newville, Cumberland County, is a professional pianist, singer and songwriter. She produces and performs the regional Portraits of White holiday concerts. In 2014, the two met when Kirstin joined the orchestra for Portraits of White. The duo performs several concerts around southeastern and central Pennsylvania each year and even debuted a holiday album, Midwinter’s Gift, in 2022. 

“After Midwinter’s Gift, we both felt we should do another project together,” says Frances. The dream of creating an album with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) has been with her since 2017. “Suddenly, it was, ‘wait a minute.’ Double Keyed. London Symphony Orchestra. Holiday album. Do we want another adventure, a BIG adventure?” she recalls. 

They decided to go for it and launched a grassroots campaign, enlisting commercial sponsors and crowdsourcing the funds to build a $130,000 budget. Phillip Keveren, the producer and arranger of their first album, already “knew the ropes,” having recorded with the renowned orchestra on four previous occasions. Working together, the musicians compiled a list of 11 songs, mostly traditional (and newly arranged by Keveren), to become their second holiday album, Joy! From the USA, they hired a photographer, worked with representatives of the LSO, and tackled all the new details associated with recording at Abbey Road. For Double Keyed, heading across the pond is disquieting – exciting, but with a twinge of anxiety. 

“The excitement is over the top. One day it’s really exciting, and the next day it’s terrifying,” says Frances. “I’m not going to be able to function. I’ll be frozen,” speculates Kirstin. But by Wednesday, April 8, we were all in London. 

“Soon, we’ll be away from here”

We all arrived in London as separate groups, except me who traveled alone. Kirstin and her husband, Ken, flew together. Frances arrived with her brother and sister, who made the trip from Colorado and Canada, respectively. Phillip, who will serve as producer and arranger on the new album, arrived from Nashville with a suitcase filled with 2,900 pages of sheet music, as well as his working partner Kent Hooper, who is the album’s producer and sound/recording engineer.

“I’m afraid of my feelings,” said Frances, as we met for dinner on the eve of recording day. Her jitters are more of how she may react in the moment than the anxiety leading up to this point. But there is an easiness at our table overlooking the Grand Union Canal in London’s Little Venice. Our combined spirits are as calm as the waters sending narrowboats past our overlooking seats. Even though some of us are strangers, we are all friends with someone at the table (I know Ken and Kirstin from Garden Spot High School). We swap a few stories of our pasts and lightly go over the details of the next day. Our time together will be brief, but unforgettably powerful. Tomorrow’s recording at Abbey Road is split in two, with sessions starting at 1 and 5 p.m. Phillip will conduct the orchestra. In the studio sound booth, Kent will join Andrew Dudman, whose work on The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack won him a Motion Picture Sound Editors Award. 

“Don’t worry about me,” I tell Kirstin and Frances. “I’ll get what I need. I’ll be a fly on the wall, but the one thing I do want to get is a zebra crossing photo.” 

“Come together right now”

By late morning on Thursday, April 9, the pedestrian crosswalk at Abbey Road – the one made famous on the cover of The Beatles 1969 album – is busy with music fans and tourists attempting to recreate the iconic photo. I have been here for a couple of hours, just taking in the activity, my trusty Canon 80D by my side. I thought I was ready to capture the moment Kirstin, Frances, Phillip, and Kent stepped onto the striped crosswalk.

Early in the morning, a few Beatles fans politely waited for traffic and made their way evenly across the black and white stripes on the road as friends snapped quick photos from the sidewalk. As lunch time approached, the sunny intersection of Abbey and Grove End roads became polluted with people. Entire families streamed into the roadway. Eager phonetographers moved further from the sidewalk into the street, narrowly avoiding cars headed toward unknown London locations. For the most part drivers understood, except a few eager delivery vans who sounded their horns. I watched a family of three attempt the perfect pic two dozen times! Sitting on a stone ledge, in the shade, I smiled and shook my head as if I were not a tourist who would attempt the same feat if I had family with me. I was lost in the moment, a spectator of folly and fandom, when a black cab pulled up across from the studio and out hopped my subjects. Taken by surprise, I hoisted my camera and just let the shutter fly, hoping to catch something good for the pages of Lancaster County Magazine.

“I only give you my situation”

Despite my voyeuristic enjoyment of humanity recreating Beatles-inspired zebra crossings, I must admit that my excitement to visit Abbey Road Studios hinged on my adoration of film and Pink Floyd rather than The Beatles. In this unassuming building set off from the bustling sidewalk, Floyd recorded their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, at the same time The Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Two iconic bands of rock and roll history down the hall from each other! 

There are six recording spaces at Abbey Road. Studio One, where the LSO will set up for Double Keyed, is the largest and is used mainly for film scores or tracks requiring many musicians, like the 40-piece orchestra used on The Beatles’ A Day in the Life. Portions of Floyd’s The Wall filled Studio One. And despite the legends of rock and pop who have come through the front door at Abbey Road, Studio One’s most famous resident is composer John Williams. Starting with Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, Williams launched worlds and moved armies from this space for movies like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Return of the Jedi.

After pulling open the gate to the Abbey Road property – drawing quizzical gazes from fans snapping selfies against the concrete and iron fence – I entered my preapproved code with security and decided to wander the halls a bit after first locating Studio One. Framed candids of modern musicians – Amy Winehouse, Ed Sheeran, and the Spice Girls – peppered the walls in between stacks of instruments and recording devices. Movie posters with musicians’ signatures appear haphazardly on the walls of all three floors. After an hour of wandering in awe, I grab a coffee at the cantina and return to Studio One where I will spend the next seven hours witnessing the creation of Joy! 

“Once there was a way”

From my perch on the balcony, I watch the 70-piece orchestra fill into seats carefully arranged below. Like anyone arriving for work, the musicians exchange hellos, check their cell phones and find places for their water bottles. Warming up begins slowly, piece by piece. It is a grand cacophony. Horns breathe life into the already living space. The click of closing cases blends with the sound of rosined bows. Packed with so many memories, the walls reverberate the echoes of the past – John Lennon, Jacqueline du Pré, and the Studio’s founder, Sir Edward Elgar. Monitors flip between a static Abbey Road logo, shots of the conductor’s podium, and the sound room. Eventually, the orchestra is ready. Kirstin makes her way downstairs and gathers Frances on her way. 

“I want them to see you and know what you do, and that this money was raised by you and your people,” says the orchestra’s recordings and projects planning manager, Mario de Sa. He senses the last-minute jitters arising in Double Keyed as they prepare to welcome a group of musicians they hold in the highest esteem. The two take the podium and the musicians find an unspoken cue to go quiet. The story Double Keyed tells is of a dream, how funding for this session came from fans and sponsors, how inspiration and determination was gleaned from their families, and as Kirstin unfurled a sheet of paper filled with the names of those who donated – reaching the floor and spilling toward the feet of the first row of musicians – applause erupts from the orchestra.

It is time to go to work. The first song is a new arrangement of Joy to the World. 

Phillip on the podium resembles a magician, creating inspiration with the baton. Energy combines with emotion as sound blossoms in the space. From where I sit, this is more than sound, the music feels like nothing I have felt before. Kirstin had returned to the balcony, taking a seat next to her husband. Frances stayed below, having pulled up a chair behind the conductor. For the first few songs, Kirstin followed along with the sheet music. Frances sat watching the orchestra intently, nodding here and there, swinging a foot now and then. With a mug of hot water in her hand, her emotions had found a stable place.

Sometimes the first take was perfect, other times – like the hour-long session for Nutcracker Sweet – Phillip needed to coax certain subtleties into the piece. During Silent Night, Kirstin moved to the sound booth. I was caught up in the process and often forgot I was there to take notes for the story you read today. I realize there must be some love of science to enjoy the exactness of classical music, and I quickly come to appreciate those who can hear the nuances most listeners would never notice.

The first session, running three hours, put five songs “on tape.” After a break for dinner (for which I dipped out for some fish and chips in St. John’s Wood), only some of the orchestra returned as designed, their day done after the first five recordings. And the day flowed on. Phillip’s wand floated in the rarified air of Studio One until 11 songs had been captured. Our day at Abbey Road was done.

All our souls were overfilled, and on the walk toward our hotels the conversation spilled with excitement about subjects other than music. It was too soon to reflect. The feeling of Abbey Road’s embrace was still fresh on our spirits as the streetlights of London made our shadows dance on uneven sidewalks. Over the next few days, we all departed, heading back to the USA. 

In July, Double Keyed traveled to Nashville. Reuniting with Phillip and Kent, the duo recorded their individual tracks for Joy! at Speakeasy Recording Studio. The album is set for a November 6 release and features 11 tracks (including those previously mentioned) and will be celebrated with two local performances. “The Journey to Joy!” concerts will take place on November 15 (3 p.m.) at The Meeting House, 1155 Walnut Bottom Road, Carlisle, and November 22 (3 p.m.) at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 301 St. Thomas Road, Lancaster.

For more information, visit doublekeyedmusic.com