Post by Dave on Oct 1, 2006 1:48:06 GMT
Here's a nice article about All Angels in The Sunday Times Scotland today... with the emphasis on Daisy.
Dave
The Sunday Times
October 01, 2006
Making an Arctic Monkey of the classics
Daisy Chute aims to shake up the more serious side of music as one of the All Angels.
By Jeremy Austin
It is eight years since Daisy Chute made her professional debut in Les Misérables, two years since she recorded her first album and three months since she became a member of All Angels — an all-girl band tipped rather improbably to do for classical music what the Arctic Monkeys have done for rock.
Chute is 17 years old and has a hectic schedule. On the day we meet she is having her hair and make-up done for a brief concert appearance and photocall with the other three Angels. Then they are heading off to London’s West End for the opening night of the musical Wicked and an appearance at the after-show party that will last well into the wee hours.
“It is out of this world. In some ways the whole thing is so sort of surreal,” says Chute, who comes from Edinburgh.
It is dizzying for all four girls — Daisy, Laura Wright, 16, from Sussex, Melanie Nakhla, 17, and Charlotte Ritchie, 17, both from London. Three months ago they were thinking of their summer holidays. Now they are the subject of a £2m investment by the Universal Music Group.
It was Dickon Stainer, head of Universal Classics and Jazz, who kicked off the rumoured £1m marketing campaign when he muttered the now much-quoted comparison to the Monkeys.
Chute is currently studying at a specialist music school in England for her A-levels. She wants to go to university, so does she think she can handle the pressure? “I think so,” she says. “I feel I have got a good crowd and support behind me — a lot of friends and family.
I have had a really supportive background, so I don’t think I will have any problems. But we will have to see.”
She laughs nervously at the idea of “having to see”. Certainly, Alice and John, while backing their daughter’s aspirations, have reservations. “But they are excited, because they know how much I love singing,” she says. “I think they are concerned about school work. It is going to be disruptive.”
Formerly a pupil at the Loretto school near Edinburgh, she transferred to the music-orientated Purcell school in Bushey, Hertfordshire.
Daisy says it was her mother who fired her love of jazz. She was also responsible for Daisy attending auditions for the Edinburgh Playhouse production of Les Misérables. “It was such a great experience,” she recalls.
After that she spent several years training as a chorister in a cathedral choir before appearing on Stars in Their Eyes Kids as a young Judy Garland.
Her jazz “training” continued with trips to the Edinburgh Festival of Jazz and Blues and open-mike nights in the city’s jazz clubs. Then at the fringe she took part in the Sophisticated Ladies jazz cabaret and undertook a masterclass by the jazz vocalist Mark Murphy. Comparing her to a young Barbra Streisand, he urged her to record.
“I have been lucky, because it could have been the next girl from me,” Daisy says. “There was a bit of luck involved. I had something, I don’t know what it was.”
She will have to remain grounded. Already the knives are out for All Angels, the latest in a line of attempts by record companies to use pop glamour to inject some life into the waning classical music market.
Stories have already appeared criticising the mix on the band’s first album — due out next month — of classical work such as Schubert’s Ave Maria with Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird and, predictably, Robbie Williams’s Angels.
Daisy is bold enough to hit back. She believes in crossover and knocks away any doubts with gusto. After all, she can write and sing, so she has things she can fall back on.
“People think it is kind of dumbing down classical music,” she says, a trifle indignantly, “but it is the way forward.”
Make no mistake, this angelic upstart means to fly high.
All Angels’ first single, a cover version of Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird, is released on Oct 16
October 01, 2006
Making an Arctic Monkey of the classics
Daisy Chute aims to shake up the more serious side of music as one of the All Angels.
By Jeremy Austin
It is eight years since Daisy Chute made her professional debut in Les Misérables, two years since she recorded her first album and three months since she became a member of All Angels — an all-girl band tipped rather improbably to do for classical music what the Arctic Monkeys have done for rock.
Chute is 17 years old and has a hectic schedule. On the day we meet she is having her hair and make-up done for a brief concert appearance and photocall with the other three Angels. Then they are heading off to London’s West End for the opening night of the musical Wicked and an appearance at the after-show party that will last well into the wee hours.
“It is out of this world. In some ways the whole thing is so sort of surreal,” says Chute, who comes from Edinburgh.
It is dizzying for all four girls — Daisy, Laura Wright, 16, from Sussex, Melanie Nakhla, 17, and Charlotte Ritchie, 17, both from London. Three months ago they were thinking of their summer holidays. Now they are the subject of a £2m investment by the Universal Music Group.
It was Dickon Stainer, head of Universal Classics and Jazz, who kicked off the rumoured £1m marketing campaign when he muttered the now much-quoted comparison to the Monkeys.
Chute is currently studying at a specialist music school in England for her A-levels. She wants to go to university, so does she think she can handle the pressure? “I think so,” she says. “I feel I have got a good crowd and support behind me — a lot of friends and family.
I have had a really supportive background, so I don’t think I will have any problems. But we will have to see.”
She laughs nervously at the idea of “having to see”. Certainly, Alice and John, while backing their daughter’s aspirations, have reservations. “But they are excited, because they know how much I love singing,” she says. “I think they are concerned about school work. It is going to be disruptive.”
Formerly a pupil at the Loretto school near Edinburgh, she transferred to the music-orientated Purcell school in Bushey, Hertfordshire.
Daisy says it was her mother who fired her love of jazz. She was also responsible for Daisy attending auditions for the Edinburgh Playhouse production of Les Misérables. “It was such a great experience,” she recalls.
After that she spent several years training as a chorister in a cathedral choir before appearing on Stars in Their Eyes Kids as a young Judy Garland.
Her jazz “training” continued with trips to the Edinburgh Festival of Jazz and Blues and open-mike nights in the city’s jazz clubs. Then at the fringe she took part in the Sophisticated Ladies jazz cabaret and undertook a masterclass by the jazz vocalist Mark Murphy. Comparing her to a young Barbra Streisand, he urged her to record.
“I have been lucky, because it could have been the next girl from me,” Daisy says. “There was a bit of luck involved. I had something, I don’t know what it was.”
She will have to remain grounded. Already the knives are out for All Angels, the latest in a line of attempts by record companies to use pop glamour to inject some life into the waning classical music market.
Stories have already appeared criticising the mix on the band’s first album — due out next month — of classical work such as Schubert’s Ave Maria with Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird and, predictably, Robbie Williams’s Angels.
Daisy is bold enough to hit back. She believes in crossover and knocks away any doubts with gusto. After all, she can write and sing, so she has things she can fall back on.
“People think it is kind of dumbing down classical music,” she says, a trifle indignantly, “but it is the way forward.”
Make no mistake, this angelic upstart means to fly high.
All Angels’ first single, a cover version of Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird, is released on Oct 16
Dave
