SEARCHING FOR THE GOLDEN VOICE!
The image above is the young woman I have chosen as my main character in my first stage musical entitled “Queen of the Street."
Around 2010, I began an ambitious project to complete a stage musical which had an intro and ending tune and a whopping TWENTY FOUR full production songs! I had the idea for the story and some of the songs, but I knew I needed a very special voice for the main character.
THE STORY
A young woman in England prior to the coronation of Princess Victoria has travelled to London with her mother to visit her dying aunt. While there, she finds herself in a main street full of street vendors and the public, as well as street urchin children and kids from the Cotton Mill, all awaiting the passing of the princesses coach.
There, she makes friends with some local kids, two of whom will feature in her life dramatically at a later date. She is then introduced to an impressario who upon immediately recognising her beautiful golden voice and her star quality, offers to make her a star.
As she becomes a star of the stage, she catches the eye of a Lord Fittley Darrow, a cad who lures her into a loveless, slave like marriage. Due to bad circumstances, she ends up on the street penniless, but is rescued by Adam, one of her admirers from the street. So Tilly, the girl with the golden voice is redeemed and saved from suicide.
THE SEARCH FOR THE GOLDEN VOICE!
For a whole year I had contacted various female singers and conducted auditions. However I felt none of the women had the right type of voice, nor the experience of singing musicals/opera for the part. I was beginning to despair, when by chance…and I can't remember who told me or how I came to know about the young woman who would eventually sing the parts of my main character, TILLY!
ENTER LAURA - THE REAL GOLDEN VOICE!
The young woman I found was actually only around five minutes from me, at a different housing estate. her name was Laura Killen, a young English lass living in Scotland. The meeting went well and when she turned up the following week for an audition, I knew she was perfect for the part and…she was so good, brought tears to my eyes (truly).
For me, Laura Killen was a gift from heaven. With her on board, I knew I could then fire ahead with the recordings. She was just perfect and brilliant for the songs and she had such a beautiful semi-operatic voice with a great range, being a soprano, yet didn't have that operatic ‘affectation’ that most opera singers have. To me, she was more like the ABBA girls, operatic but not over-the-top with it!
ENTER THE G-MAN!
And so, armed with my songs, lyrics and libretto, me, my wife Maureen and Laura set off for the HQ Studio in Glasgow. The owner and audio engineer was an ebullient, stand-out guy with a red mohawk haircut. This was Gregor James McPhie, multi-instrumentalist, platinum disc winner and amiable person.
Gregor not only recorded the tracks and songs for me, but actually sang the part of a few characters, which was great for me, as I didn't have lots of contacts from the musical/operatic world. He did such a fabulous job of recording the musical and I totally endorse HQ studio as a professional recording studio.
Mrs Tartan Composer
I was lucky to have a wife who backed me up on my musical projects. Not only did she help with ideas and suggestions, but even sang on a good few of the songs. She sang with pathos for the characters, which just added another little something special to add to Laura's smooth, professional and utterly listenable vocals.
Because I didn't have a male singer, I sang the male parts and some of the female parts (the two sisters in the musical). The finished product is a ‘GUIDE’ CD for pro / amateur theatre companies who can use their own singers/actors for the musical. So, that's my story. I hope you enjoyed reading it.
LAURA KILLEN
Laura can be contacted via facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LauraEKillen and also: https://www.lastminutemusicians.com/members/laurakillen/contact.html
GREGOR JAMES MCPHIE (G-MAN) Gregor can be contacted here:
https://www.facebook.com/thehqglasgow/
https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-hq-glasgow-glasgow
QUEEN OF THE STREET STAGE MUSICAL CONTACT DETAILS:
If you are an am/dram company or professional theatre coy and would like to stage/produce this musical, then contact me at the above email address. To hear some tracks from the musical, checkout soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/tartan-composer-159105084/tracks and scroll down to the “Queen of the Street” tracks.