Victoria Gray

July 2014

IT was always meant to be a bit of a giggle; a chance to taste fame, make a few quid and have fun.

But when Bilsthorpe’s Victoria Gray now looks back on the two years with Amore, a classical crossover - or ‘popera’ - group based in London, she knows that her heart lay elsewhere.

“It was great fun, don’t get me wrong,” says the 27-year-old, who now lives in Burton Joyce with her fiance.

“But that showbiz world wasn’t really me. There was a thing I used to call Meerkat syndrome that people used to do at celebrity parties. You’d be talking to them and they’d be constantly bobbing up and down and looking around the room for celebrities.

“I’d couldn’t wait to get back home and get in my onesie,” she adds with a laugh.

Amore were four members of the Royal College of Music, from where Victoria graduated with an MA in Performance, the end of eight years of study.

Her plan was always to be an opera singer but the opportunity for a bit of fun and possible fame came along when they were signed to major record label, Universal.

Highlights over the past two years include performing on a boat on the Thames in front of the Queen as part of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations and singing Abide With Me and the National Anthem at last year’s FA Cup Final between Manchester City and Wigan Athletic, where 82,000 people packed out Wembley Stadium.

Amore also opened shows for Katherine Jenkins and Russell Watson, two of the biggest classical crossover artist in the UK. There has been modelling for GC Watches, that included a starring role in a TV campaign.

“I’m still doing that,” says Victoria.

And various celebrity parties.

“We did a lot with Samuel L Jackson, performing at his events. They were the best parties. He loved classical music and we’d sing before dinner, then join everyone else for the meal. We were on a table with comedian Stephen K Amos at one of them and he was hilarious. And Ron Weasley was on the next table.

“Will Smith was a lovely guy. We did a lot for a charity called WellChild, which is one the Prince Harry’s main charities. We performed at the annual Helping Hands Ball which was star-studded.”

She adds: “I found that the loveliest people were the genuinely talented ones. The reality TV stars were the ones with an ego and attitude.”

All four members of Amore disbanded the group this year to work on solo projects.

“We missed opera and being part of a production,” says Victoria who moved back to Nottinghamshire six months ago with fiance Sam Ogrizovic, the Kimberley Cricket Club captain. The couple will tie the knot in September.

“I haven’t missed London once,” she admits.

Her focus now is to train with the English National Opera, but she needs to raise £2,000 to do so.

“You work with the best directors and conductors; it’s really exciting.

“I was worried that being from the crossover world they wouldn’t take me seriously because they are two very different worlds. All of us in Amore went into it quite naively thinking we could straddle both worlds but it became increasingly impossible when we had a record company who wanted us to sing songs out of our comfort zone.”

She means mainstream songs given the opera treatment.

She will be doing a few of them as part of her first solo concert tomorrow night, mixed in with more authentic opera songs.

“It’s more nerve-wracking than the FA Cup Final,” she says of the concert at Samworth Church Academy in Mansfield.

“Although there were so many people in Wembley Stadium, you couldn’t see their faces. But singing to people you know, sat right in front of you, is really hard.”

The venue is where Mansfield girls’ choir Cantamus used to rehearse. Victoria joined while still at school and sang with them all over the world.

Another was Lucy Kay, the Notts-raised runner up of this year’s Britain’s Got Talent.

“She’s a lovely girl and she’s done so well,” says Victoria.

“I saw her a couple of weeks ago and we sang together.”

That was at the memorial concert in Mansfield for Cantamus founder Pamela Cook, who died last year.

“I told her that if she needed any advice about the celebrity world then I was there for her. Because it is a shock to the system. It’s not for the faint-hearted. It can be quite brutal.”

She describes the concert as “incredible night.

Says Victoria: “Imagine 400 girls singing Raise Me Up together. It gives me goosebumps thinking about it now.

“Miss Cook was the biggest musical inspiration in my life. I still miss her every day.”

Her long-term ambitions are to sing on all the major opera stages around the world and it’s a journey she’s excited about embarking on once again.

“I want to be part of that buzz again; being part of a production and watching it go from an idea to the stage.

“Amore was amazing. I had two years doing things I never thought I’d do. But now I feel like I’m home and doing the thing I first fell in love with.”

Victoria Gray presents Summer Serenades at Samworth Church Academy in Mansfield tomorrow from 6pm, with guest Natalie Montakhab. Tickets are £12, call 01623 822567 or email maggie.magent@btinternet.com.   

Victoria Gray

August 2013

WHEN you are going to sing for the Queen, it’s a given that you’d want to look your best. And she did. Until the rain came.

Victoria Gray and the other members of the opera group Amore, were on a boat on the Thames gearing up for the performance of a lifetime at last summer’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

“We got on the boat thinking this will be a nice day out,” says Victoria, 26, who grew up in Bilsthorpe.

They’d boarded the boat at nine o’clock that morning.

“When it started raining we had ponchos and umbrellas but they said to us ‘you do realise that when you are singing for the Queen you can’t have them. don’t you?’

“It didn’t matter anyway because the rain was coming from the side, from underneath... and it was hailing at one point. It was just ridiculous.

“We were all a bit hysterical because we were so cold and so wet. We were laughing so much... until the boat turned around and lined up opposite her boat.

“Then we realised the enormity of it.”

They had already sang Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem for the crowds but for the Queen it was to be the National Anthem.

Says Victoria: “By that time we were completely drenched and looking like drowned rats. Mascara was running down my face. And there was Kate Middleton just a few feet away looking gorgeous and pristine... and dry.

“It was one of those moments where you have to pinch yourself and think ‘Oh my God, I’m singing to the Queen.

“We were close enough that we could see her facial expressions. It was really amazing.”

But it’s not the biggest audience she and the group, who perform popular songs in an opera style, have performed to.

That was 82,000 people at Wembley Stadium earlier this year at the FA Cup Final between Manchester City and Wigan Athletic, where they sang Abide With Me and the National Anthem with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

“There is nothing like it; stepping out on to that pitch and all those people are cheering and singing along and having a good time.”

She watched the game with her brother, George, a law graduate now working for an IT company, who’d replaced her fiance because he was too busy playing cricket for Kimberley.

“Would you believe it? He turned down a free ticket to the FA Cup Final to play cricket. And I think the match was rained off anyway.”

She and Sam Ogrizovic, the Kimberley Cricket Club captain, live in London.

“His uncle won the FA Cup with Coventry City the year I was born,” she says.

“So performing at Wembley gave me a bit of street cred with the future in-laws.”

They plan to marry next September.

“I had my heart set on Thoresby Hall but I love the idea of getting married in Bilsthrope Church where my mum and dad did. Nothing too flambouyant. Although there’ll be some good music. I’ll pull in a few favours for that.”

Sam regularly returns to Notts in order to play cricket.

“He loves that club,” she laughs.

“I don’t mind because I couldn’t do what I do without his support. I’m here there and everywhere with the group and Sam is such a rock.”

Victoria knows as much about cricket as she does football, although she saw a few games at the City Ground when she was younger as her dad is an avid Forest fan.

Dad is an ex-boxer who also worked as court usher, while mum works for the NHS. Her musical gift comes more from her grandparents.

“Both my parents are tone deaf,” she laughs. “The voice comes from my grandma. She did music at university. My grandad was one of the first members of the Salvation Army band and played trombone with the Edwinstowe Colliery Band.

“And my mum’s cousin is a trumpeter for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It was because of him I saw my very first opera as he gave us free tickets.”

It was while at Minster School in Southwell that she joined Cantamus, the all-girl choir based in Mansfield, whose founder Pamela Cook died last month after suffering a stroke, aged 76.

“That was very tough,” admits Victoria, who was with the choir for ten years.

“She was the most incredible woman I’ve ever known. She changed so many girls’ lives. I think it’s 408 who passed through Cantamus and I certainly wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now if it wasn’t for Miss Cooke.

“I was so glad that I got to see her not too long before she passed away.”

That was the day after the FA Cup Final in May when she presented awards at the Mansfield Music and Drama Festival.

“I won it about 13 years ago. I got to speak about the incredible journey I had with Cantamus and how grateful I was.”

She travelling with the choir to Germany, Italy and China, where, in 2007, they were crowned World Choir Olympic Champions.

“My gran was a very close friend of hers and I knew she’d not been well for a few weeks but she’s one of those people you expect to be there forever.

“I used to go back to see her for what I called an MoT. I’d sing for her to make sure I was still doing it right. You could always trust her opinion.”

Victoria was the first singer to win The Nottingham Young Musician Competition, in 2005.

At 18 she went to the Royal College of Music in London and six years later graduated with a degree in music and an MA in performance.

She paid her way by working as a singing waitress in a restaurant called Bel Canto.

“People would be eating their dinner, the piano would start up and one of us would sing opera while walking around the tables,” she laughs.

“It was such a funny concept but it seemed to work.”

While still studying, she formed Amore with three fellow music students after two record company managers were overheard in Starbucks talking about their struggle finding a new opera group.

They signed a six album deal and have since appeared on This Morning, The National Lottery, Sky News, BBC Breakfast, Songs of Praise and at Chelsea Flower Show. There’s even been a shoot for OK! Magazine.

“Apart from the FA Cup Final and the Jubilee, one of my proudest moments was performing at the Royal Albert Hall for the Festival of Remebrance in front of the forces families,” she says.

“It gave us goosebumps. And I use to steward there when I was a student.”

This summer Amore have been busy performing at outdoor concerts, including a concert with Katherine Jenkins last month.

“She couldn’t have been nicer,” says Victoria, who’ll be with Amore supporting Russell Watson at Clumber Park next weekend.

“We supported him last summer and learned a lot from him; he’s such a showman.”

In recent weeks she’s been blogging about her attempt to get in shape for a half-marathon in October.

“I’m the most unfit, allergic-to-exercise person I know,” she laughs.

“It was David (Webb of Amore) who challenged me. He was banging on about all the exercise he was doing while I was tucking into Big Macs. He’d been writing a column for OK! Magazine and said he’d get me fit in 30 days.”

She admits: “I’m suffering, although I am feeling the benefit. I’ve been doing a class called Body Pump, which sounds rude to me. And anti-gravity yoga which is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever done. You’re hanging from a rope and doing weird positions. I got in trouble for laughing too much. The teacher shouted at me and said: ‘You’re obviously not at peace with yourself!’”

Next month they’ll be in Italy filming an advert for the Swiss watch manufacturer GC, that’ll be screened in the UK and Europe. She’s had two free watches so far.

“My dad teases me that I’m a wrist model. He says: ‘They don’t want your ugly mug on the telly, Victoria’”.

Amore, with a new member Harry Thatcher replacing Peter Brathwaite (CORR), will be recording a second album for release around Christmas, which may well include a version of Rihanna’s We Found Love.

“We’re playing around a lot more,” she says.

And there is talk of her and Sam moving back to Notts, because she misses it.

“We’ve been to all these ridiculous swanky parties and launches of various things over the past year but I’d much rather be at home with a takeaway watching a DVD or out with friends in Mansfield or Nottingham.

“I really miss my family and friends.”

Amore will support Russell Watson at Clumber Park on Sunday, August 18. For tickets, priced at £29.95 and £22 concs, call 0845 075 6101 or visit www.ukevents.neatticketing.co.uk.

Read Victoria’s blog at diaryofalazygirl87.blogspot.co.uk.

Victoria Gray of Amore at the FA Cup Final

May 2013

AROUND 90,000 people in the stadium, millions around the world watching on TV and yet it’s still not the biggest gig of Victoria Gray’s career.
On Saturday, the 26-year-old from Bilsthorpe will be singing with her opera group Amore at the FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium.
“I’m really excited about it, especially because we have strong links to football in the group,” says Victoria, who was once of member of Mansfield’s all girl choir Cantamus.
“When Dave was younger he had trials for Plymouth, Monica’s dad is a sports journalist in Scotland and I’m marrying into a footballing family.”
She got engaged last year to Sam Ogrizovic and the couple plan to marry next September.
“His uncle won the FA Cup with Coventry City the year I was born, so doing this is giving me a bit of street cred with the future in-laws,” she jokes.
Amore will be performing two songs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra before the game between Manchester City and Wigan Athletic.
“We’re doing Abide With Me and the National Anthem which should be an amazing moment,” says Victoria, who formed the group while at the Royal College of Music in London.
They signed to the Warner label last year and have since appeared on This Morning, The National Lottery and Sky News and been featured in OK! Magazine.
“We’ll get to the ground at about 11am and have a rehearsal and soundcheck with the orchestra,” she says.
“Then we’ll get ready. I’ll be putting on a glam frock. We are having a meeting about what we’ll be wearing this week. We do get a bit of a say in it.”
She adds with a laugh: “I think I’ll go on in a football shirt.”
If she was allowed it would be a Forest shirt, having seen a few games at the City Ground when she was younger with her dad, a Reds fan.
“It was when there was that guy was playing who they said had a pineapple on his head,” she laughs.
Jason Lee?
“That’s him. I remember the song ‘he’s got a pineapple on his head’.”
Victoria is no football expert.
“I did the blondest thing watching a football match in a pub one time. I think it was an England games and I was trying my best to show I knew what was going on. The opposition score and everyone was shouting and kicking up a fuss. Then a few seconds later they scored again. So, I stood up shouting ‘oh I can’t believe it!’. But no-one else was reacting. It was the replay,” she laughs.
“I still haven’t lived that down with family.”
Although the FA Cup Final will be a huge occasion, her biggest gig to date was performing for the Queen last summer at the Jubilee celebrations.
“It was an immense day although we looked like drowned rats because it was raining all day.
“We were on a boat on the Thames from nine o’clock in the morning. We were all a bit hysterical because we were so cold and so wet.
“We sang Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem in the rain so we were soaked by the time it came to sing the National Anthem to the Queen. Mascara was running down our faces and my hair was a mess. We looked like we’d just stepped out of the shower.”
As well as dates with Katherine Jenkins this summer, Amore will be supporting Russell Watson at Clumber Park on August 18.
The FA Cup Final is on Saturday on ITV1. Kick-off is at 5.15pm.

Amore (Victoria Gray)

April 2012

IN honour of Alvin Stardust, another musical graduate of the Minster School in Newark, it had been suggested (by me) that Victoria Gray adopt the name Victoria Starburst. “Oh I do remember that,” says the 24-year-old from Bilsthorpe of our conversation two years ago.

She’d never heard of the My Coo-Ca-Choo hitmaker. She still doesn’t know who he is.

But then again, Victoria moves in different music circles.

The blonde soprano was a member of Cantamus, the all-girl choir based in Mansfield, travelling to Germany, Italy and China, where, in 2007, they were crowned Olympic Champions. Victoria was also the first singer to win The Nottingham Young Musician Competition, in 2005.

She’s since been studying at the Royal College of Music in London, where she met the other three members of the new opera group, Amore, who signed a six-album deal earlier this year.

“It all happened through a really lucky break. Someone at the college was in a Starbucks next to the Warner offices. And he overheard a conversation between two senior managers from the label, saying they were struggling to find a new opera group. He reported back to us and told us to contact Warner, we auditioned for them and it’s been a bit of whirlwind ever since.”

The group was created by the four friends for the audition.

“Because we were mates and have sung together before we have a natural chemistry.”

Amore also features baritone Peter Brathwaite, tenor David Webb and soprano Monica McGhee.

In recent weeks the quartet have appeared on Sky News, BBC Breakfast News and been touted in the national press as: “the next big opera band” (The Times).

Their debut album, Stand Together, is due out next month on the same label as Green Day, Muse and Michael Bublé.

The album is produced by Simon Franglen, who has worked with Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Katherine Jenkins, Rolando Villazon and Barbra Streisand.

In between promoting for that, Victoria has the final few weeks of her eight-year course at the Royal College of Music to finish.

They’ve already confirmed TV appearances during the Serenading Britain campaign including on BBC2, closing the Chelsea Flower Show, ITV1’s This Morning and Songs of Praise.

Excuse the cliché but it is a dream come true for her.

“When I was 15 and I saw the Classical Brits on television I vowed that by the time I was 25 I would be performing on it.

“And that looks like it will be happening this year.”

Back in Bilsthorpe, her parents are rightly proud.

“They’re ecstatic. And it’s great to be able to give something back to them because they’ve always put me first. All their hard work has paid for my singing lessons... and that’s paid off.”

Dad, an ex-schoolboy boxer and court usher, is retired, and mum works with the NHS.

“She runs her own business in coaching and therapy and has really helped me with any performance anxieties I’ve had. She’s come backstage and got me in a really positive mindset before a concert.”

Anxieties? You’ve been singing publicly since school.

She adds: “And that was some of the best training I ever had. But if those butterflies ever go, I think you’re in the wrong profession.”

Amore’s debut album Stand Together will be released May 28. For more about them go to www.weareamore.com.