Post by admin on Oct 6, 2006 10:29:42 GMT
From shropshirestar...
Dream Is Becoming A Reality
It’s something most schoolgirls can only dream of. But for Melanie Nakhla, the desire to become a professional singer is fast becoming a reality. The 17-year-old Shropshire girl has been signed by one of the world’s top record labels as one quarter of new girl band All Angels.
And in just three months the former Prestfelde School pupil’s life has been transformed.
The Musical Nakhla family
Melanie (17, Isabelle (14), Christina (7), Paul (11), Laura (19)
I meet the aspiring star as the quartet are getting ready for their first taste of the VIP treatment as red carpet guests at the opening night of new stage musical Wicked in London’s West End.
Giggling squeals bounce off the walls of the plush hotel suite in Leicester Square as the girls delve through a shop load of glitzy matching outfits and shoes all purchased by their minders for the occasion.
Manager Steve Abbott is busy making and answering calls as Melanie steps outside the “showbiz bubble”.
The teenager moved to Shrewsbury with her family when she was just three-years-old.
Although her parents Kim and Susan Nakhla, a businessman and psychotherapist, own a property in central London too, Shropshire is very much where the heart is and where the family spends most weekends and holidays.
“I will always see Shrewsbury as my home. That is where I have spent pretty much all of my life. I have lots of memories of growing up there. I also still have many friends there,” says Melanie.
The fact that someone in the family has landed a music deal will have come as no surprise to those that know the Nakhlas, and Melanie, for she is one of five musically-gifted children.
Elder sister Laura, who is 19 and has a choral scholarship, is studying music at Kings College, London. Isabel, 14, a pupil at Malvern College, plays the piano and violin, and also sings.
Then there’s 11-year-old Paul who attends Westminster Cathedral Choir School, and last but not least, Christina, aged seven, who is learning to play the piano.
Even mum and dad share a passion for music. The children have grown up with music all around them and so think it is natural to sing and play a musical instrument.
However, Melanie’s talents are not limited to music. She has played tennis and netball at county level and is currently learning to fly a Cessna two-seater plane.
A pupil at London boarding school Wycombe Abbey where she is head of choir, she plans to take A-Levels in French, Spanish and Economics next year and is looking forward to a gap year to improve her Spanish further by travelling in South America.
Already such a high-achiever, plenty of other careers beckon if her girl band dream is short-lived. However, singing is the priority at the moment.
She joined the Shrewsbury Children’s Choir at the age of eight, while a pupil at Shrewsbury Junior High, and took up playing the violin and piano, the latter of which she dropped after a short period.
Juggling school, countless interests and now a career in singing too, something’s got to give, and sadly for Melanie, that’s the violin, but she has achieved a level seven grading for her efforts thus far.
Around 120 girls from across Britain auditioned to make the band.
Abbott went to Wycombe Abbey in June to hear Melanie sing, accompanied by her head of music George Bevan on the piano, who nominated his star pupil. Melanie almost missed the opportunity because a flying lesson ran over schedule.
It took Universal Music just a week to confirm the faces of its new venture.
Melanie received the call on her way to another flying lesson and was so shocked and excited, that when she broke the news to her parents, her father was more concerned about calming his daughter down before she literally did take to the skies. She does not even remember if she agreed to be in the band.
“I probably didn’t actually,” she giggles. “I kept asking, ‘really? me’?”
Melanie and the other girls, Charlotte Ritchie, 17, Laura Wright 16, and Daisy Shute, 17, were thrown together just a week before they started rehearsals and recording their debut single and album, which includes a cover of Robbie Williams’ hit Angels and are due to be released next month.
“We haven’t just done it because it’s Robbie Williams and everyone will like that, but because it genuinely is a really lovely song. I hope he likes it,” she says.
The group, which has a repertoire spanning everything from classical to choral and opera to pop, is being heralded as the world’s first classical girl band, rivalling the likes of G4 and Il Divo.
Universal has high hopes for its latest manufactured ensemble and is investing £1 million marketing the four Angels who have a busy agenda of newspaper, radio and television interviews ahead of them.
And if the rapturous applause following the band’s first live public performance at the prestigious Cadogan Hall in Chelsea is anything to go by, a starry future lies ahead.
As exhilarating and up-lifting as the journey so far has been, it is clear Melanie and all the girls have their feet firmly on the ground, under no illusions about the hard long graft that lies ahead.
“I would love for us to be able to just continue what we are doing and do really well, and for people to really appreciate the music we make and also the range of songs and genres that we can sing, because some people argue that you can’t really take us seriously because we are not serious classical musicians, but we are not trying to be, we are classical crossover,” she says.
“At the moment it all feels really surreal - that it’s not really happening.”
And with that, she disappears back into the bubble.
By Sunita Patel
Dream Is Becoming A Reality
It’s something most schoolgirls can only dream of. But for Melanie Nakhla, the desire to become a professional singer is fast becoming a reality. The 17-year-old Shropshire girl has been signed by one of the world’s top record labels as one quarter of new girl band All Angels.
And in just three months the former Prestfelde School pupil’s life has been transformed.
The Musical Nakhla family
Melanie (17, Isabelle (14), Christina (7), Paul (11), Laura (19)
I meet the aspiring star as the quartet are getting ready for their first taste of the VIP treatment as red carpet guests at the opening night of new stage musical Wicked in London’s West End.
Giggling squeals bounce off the walls of the plush hotel suite in Leicester Square as the girls delve through a shop load of glitzy matching outfits and shoes all purchased by their minders for the occasion.
Manager Steve Abbott is busy making and answering calls as Melanie steps outside the “showbiz bubble”.
The teenager moved to Shrewsbury with her family when she was just three-years-old.
Although her parents Kim and Susan Nakhla, a businessman and psychotherapist, own a property in central London too, Shropshire is very much where the heart is and where the family spends most weekends and holidays.
“I will always see Shrewsbury as my home. That is where I have spent pretty much all of my life. I have lots of memories of growing up there. I also still have many friends there,” says Melanie.
The fact that someone in the family has landed a music deal will have come as no surprise to those that know the Nakhlas, and Melanie, for she is one of five musically-gifted children.
Elder sister Laura, who is 19 and has a choral scholarship, is studying music at Kings College, London. Isabel, 14, a pupil at Malvern College, plays the piano and violin, and also sings.
Then there’s 11-year-old Paul who attends Westminster Cathedral Choir School, and last but not least, Christina, aged seven, who is learning to play the piano.
Even mum and dad share a passion for music. The children have grown up with music all around them and so think it is natural to sing and play a musical instrument.
However, Melanie’s talents are not limited to music. She has played tennis and netball at county level and is currently learning to fly a Cessna two-seater plane.
A pupil at London boarding school Wycombe Abbey where she is head of choir, she plans to take A-Levels in French, Spanish and Economics next year and is looking forward to a gap year to improve her Spanish further by travelling in South America.
Already such a high-achiever, plenty of other careers beckon if her girl band dream is short-lived. However, singing is the priority at the moment.
She joined the Shrewsbury Children’s Choir at the age of eight, while a pupil at Shrewsbury Junior High, and took up playing the violin and piano, the latter of which she dropped after a short period.
Juggling school, countless interests and now a career in singing too, something’s got to give, and sadly for Melanie, that’s the violin, but she has achieved a level seven grading for her efforts thus far.
Around 120 girls from across Britain auditioned to make the band.
Abbott went to Wycombe Abbey in June to hear Melanie sing, accompanied by her head of music George Bevan on the piano, who nominated his star pupil. Melanie almost missed the opportunity because a flying lesson ran over schedule.
It took Universal Music just a week to confirm the faces of its new venture.
Melanie received the call on her way to another flying lesson and was so shocked and excited, that when she broke the news to her parents, her father was more concerned about calming his daughter down before she literally did take to the skies. She does not even remember if she agreed to be in the band.
“I probably didn’t actually,” she giggles. “I kept asking, ‘really? me’?”
Melanie and the other girls, Charlotte Ritchie, 17, Laura Wright 16, and Daisy Shute, 17, were thrown together just a week before they started rehearsals and recording their debut single and album, which includes a cover of Robbie Williams’ hit Angels and are due to be released next month.
“We haven’t just done it because it’s Robbie Williams and everyone will like that, but because it genuinely is a really lovely song. I hope he likes it,” she says.
The group, which has a repertoire spanning everything from classical to choral and opera to pop, is being heralded as the world’s first classical girl band, rivalling the likes of G4 and Il Divo.
Universal has high hopes for its latest manufactured ensemble and is investing £1 million marketing the four Angels who have a busy agenda of newspaper, radio and television interviews ahead of them.
And if the rapturous applause following the band’s first live public performance at the prestigious Cadogan Hall in Chelsea is anything to go by, a starry future lies ahead.
As exhilarating and up-lifting as the journey so far has been, it is clear Melanie and all the girls have their feet firmly on the ground, under no illusions about the hard long graft that lies ahead.
“I would love for us to be able to just continue what we are doing and do really well, and for people to really appreciate the music we make and also the range of songs and genres that we can sing, because some people argue that you can’t really take us seriously because we are not serious classical musicians, but we are not trying to be, we are classical crossover,” she says.
“At the moment it all feels really surreal - that it’s not really happening.”
And with that, she disappears back into the bubble.
By Sunita Patel
