Story-telling in words and music
I was 9 years old when my father and I were caught in the Birmingham pub bombings in the UK, on a night we had gone to see the Royal Ballet perform Swan Lake at the Hippodrome Theatre. In the days long before mobile phones, my mum had spent the night glued to the radio for updates. Her distraught face when we eventually arrived back home in the early hours of the morning gave me the first prompt (despite my naive age) to write a song - about the bombings and the futility of violence. My song - Where is Love? - was selected as a winner in The Observer newspaper's Young Songwriting Competition, and since then I've been intrigued and inspired to take moments from life - real or imaginary - and turn them into something that can be shared with others in a matter of minutes.
I have continued to write songs and/or music for productions including Treasure Island (Colorado Shakespeare Festival), The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare-On-a-Shoestring, UC Davis), Tartuffe and Antigone (UC Riverside) as well as my two one-person shows Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love and Nell Gwynne: An Essaye in Acting and Prostitution. In December 2011, I worked with music producer, Marti Amado (Amado Music Ltd) in San Diego to work on an EP, entitled Scenes through the Tenement Windows. The songs are really about catching momentary glimpses through windows into people's lives...
I have continued to write songs and/or music for productions including Treasure Island (Colorado Shakespeare Festival), The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare-On-a-Shoestring, UC Davis), Tartuffe and Antigone (UC Riverside) as well as my two one-person shows Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love and Nell Gwynne: An Essaye in Acting and Prostitution. In December 2011, I worked with music producer, Marti Amado (Amado Music Ltd) in San Diego to work on an EP, entitled Scenes through the Tenement Windows. The songs are really about catching momentary glimpses through windows into people's lives...