Science teacher by day, Jazz singer by night
Well I have always had a love of singing since my school days and thanks to my inspirational music director Peter Broadbent, I was able to experience, as part of a choir, the joy of performing at the International Eisteddfod music competitions as well as singing in the Concert House in Vienna. As I have grown older singing in choirs has always remained a passion of mine.
20 years ago I was introduced to a jazz singing Summer school. Since that moment I have not looked back!
Attending that first jazz Summer school was an emotional rollercoaster. At the start I was very excited but naive with the idea that jazz was a very loosely formed genre. Oh My! How wrong I was! By the time I got to Wednesday I wanted to go home because I realised that I knew nothing and that there was so much discipline needed to be able to perform jazz authentically.
My tutor, Lee Gibson (who has been an amazing support through my jazz singing development over the years) made me sing on the last jam night. I can honestly say that my performance was the worst version of” How high the moon”. However, I knew that I loved the genre and that I was going to study and learn how to be better - I was bitten by the Jazz bug.
Since then my jazz singing experience has grown over the years and I have been part of the group of six runners up in the International Jazz singing competition held by Mehr Clef in 2007, which provided me with the opportunity to perform at the Vortex Jazz Club.
I have also performed at Pizza in the Park and the Crypt at St Martin in the Fields with the Morley College Big Band. I continue to develop my knowledge of jazz standards and love the opportunity to try to present them in a different way with a lot of feeling and emotion.
I have attended jazz singing summer schools in France, Italy with wonderful tutors such as Lee Gibson, Tina May, Pete Churchill, Nick Weldon, Trevor Tomkins, Jeff Cline (may he rest in peace), Jackie Dankworth and Anita Wardell. One of my memorable summer school was in New York, where I had the opportunity to sing at the famous SMALLS jazz club. What a joy! I have also had several gigs with the Big Swing band, providing me with opportunities to perform in prestigious venues e.g. Bulls Head in Barnes.
I am constantly developing my craft performing weekly at a regular open mic evening and I have performed gigs exploring the combinations of jazz voice and steel pan in my group called BVP (Bass, Voice and Pan) which have been very well received. The possibilities are endless!
