Mr Mordant is the composer in Residence of Shugborough Hall. Every so often Mr Andrew Baker, who is the Music Officer at Staffordshire County Council, goes down to Shugborough Hall in full 1805 costume and meets the visitors. Andrew recalled; “It really brings to life the essence of the whole hall, the costumes and the music I have composed to go with my character of Joseph Mordant.” Andrew’s life is over all dedicated to the art of music and he has recently completed his CD entiltled “Joseph Mordant’s Shugborough Sonatas”. “We can revisit Shugborough in its heyday, and share the imagination of the people who made it.” The CD has 13 tracks in total with a range of classical songs all composed by Andrew, using virtual instruments. Virtual instruments are all on your computer… depending on the software you use, you can create lots of sounds, tunes and notes with an unlimited amount of instruments. This cross over of modern music use and tradional music its self is a new idea rarely used. So Joseph Mordant is the composer yet Andrew Baker is the man behind the desk. They are one of the same person… or are they? We had a little look around, did a bit of investigative journalism and found out something remarkable. There really was a Joseph Mordant alive in 1805 who was a composer. When I was looking I found that Mr Mordant lived in southern England unfortunately it never mentions that he travelled to Staffordshire but he WAS a composer it. The records found are of songs composed by Mordant. Named “My Song” and “My Song Pt II” this is the only thing we know. So if you know anything about Joseph Mordant please get in touch. We’d love to find out more about him. | 
