Lucy Kay

January 2015

ON the first night of the UK tour, Lucy Kay plunged down a flight of stairs on stage. Fortunately, this was during the rehearsal. And fortunately, thanks to what she calls “Christmas padding”, she wasn’t hurt.

“I did a Beyoncé. I walked down the top few steps, tripped on my dress and fell all the way to the bottom,” laughs the 25-year-old, who is on a tour with Britain’s Got Talent winners Collabro.

“Although I did carry on singing.”

She adds: “Christmas was good to me so I kind of fell on my flab.”

It went to plan in the concert... because she changed to singing after she’d descended the stairs.

“I can’t multi-task, apparently,” giggles the soprano, who is singing highlights from her debut album, Fantasia, which reached No. 18 in the UK chart and topped the Classical chart.

The tour opened in Carlisle on Monday.

“I got a standing ovation,” she says, sounding surprised, despite experiencing the same from the Britain’s Got Talent judges on last year’s show.

“I wasn’t expecting it because it’s Collabro’s tour and they’re not there to see my warbly opera,” says Lucy, a former Cantamus choirgirl who grew up in Sutton-in-Ashefield and Kirkby-in-Ashfield, where her mum still lives.

Since the show, on which millions watched her come second to the theatrical boy band, she has performed for celebrities like Elton John, Kate Moss and Samuel L Jackson, as well as royalty.

The tour, which comes to the Royal Concert Hall tonight, sees her sings two arias in the first half, another two after the break, then join “the boys” for a duet.

Exchanging the spotlight numerous times is not the usual structure for a concert but Lucy isn’t billed as the support act (that’s Philippa Hanna), rather a special guest.

“Some people have asked what time I’m on stage because they want to watch me then leave but it’s not like that,” she laughs.

Apart from touring the Far East with Cantamus while a schoolgirl, this is her first proper tour.

It’s a long time to be on the road, so what will she do during her downtime?

“I like to chat. And eat. The chef on the tour is amazing. I’ve been told off so many times because I keep going back for seconds.

“The sweet stuff is so nice. I’ve got a bit of a pouch going on, which isn’t ideal when you’re wearing a tight dress.”

Her essential items (apart from a knife and fork), are “girly things”.

She says: “My make-up, dresses, hair curlers, my phone is my bloodline.... and my iPod, with lots of heavy metal music on it. I was listening to a bit of Killswitch Engage in the gym this morning.”

The metal fan, whose first concerts were at Rock City, dreams of playing Download Festival. Or even just going would be nice, but commitments don’t allow her to make such plans. Her family will be at the show tonight; mum, dad, nan and sister. As well as her boyfriend, David.

“He’s my tour manager. I don’t think he could cope without me for seven weeks,” she laughs.

Lucy was back in Kirkby-in-Ashfield for two weeks at Christmas.

“The furthest I went was Mansfield. I went shopping but I didn’t go partying.”

Was she recognised?

“People tend to stare, as if they’re wondering ‘is that her?’ Very rarely does anyone approach me. But then they’ll ask me on Facebook ‘was that you?’ So I spent a lot of my time in the café at Asda in Mansfield being stared at.”


Lucy Kay joins Collabro at the Royal Concert Hall on Friday, January 30, starting at 7.30pm. Tickets are £19.50 to £38.50, from the venue, call 0115 989 5555 or go to trch.co.uk.

Britain's Got Talent 2014: Lucy Kay

June 2014

WHEN her parents split up, four-year-old Lucy Kay moved from Leicestershire to Sutton-in-Ashfield with her mum.
“I don’t quite know why she chose Sutton,” says Lucy, 25, who now lives in Glasgow.
“She met my stepdad on holiday and he lived in Derby but she didn’t want to live in Derby. I suppose it was closer to him and was like a fresh start for us.”
For Lucy it was the beginning of years of abuse, both verbal and physical, at the hands of school bullies.
“It was a tough time,” she says.
“People had already made friends and families knew each other so we were very much on our own until my stepdad moved in.”
Even then she didn’t mix with other children from the neighbourhood or school. And that’s when the bullying started. Not because of the way she look but because she loved classical music.
“Singing was the main thing that people didn’t accept and didn’t like. They thought it was weird and funny that I was singing ‘God music’. Everyone else was into techno or whatever but I wasn’t interested.”
Lucy was subjected to punches and kicks. On one occasion she was knocked unconscious.
“When I woke up they were burning cigarettes on me,” she recalls. The bullying was so extreme that police were called, although no charges were made.
She became more withdrawn and didn’t want to leave the house to go to the local shop, never mind school.
By the age of 11, mum moved the family to Kirkby-in-Ashfield in order to free her from the abuse – but it continued.
“Some of them at the new school had friends at my old one. I wasn’t interested in going out.
“I didn’t want boyfriends or drinking... and then I grew up and I did,” she laughs.
Lucy failed her GCSEs because she’d missed so many classes, although her headteacher would later help her re-sit them. After passing them and A levels, she left Nottinghamshire for good, to study music in Glasgow. That was four years ago.
“My mum said that when I was about two, the radio would be on and I’d go straight over to it and turn the dial to a station that I liked,” she says, trying to pin down why she loved classical and opera music when none of her family did.
“It was always Classic FM or a station playing orchestral music.”
She adds: “I think Charlotte Church was my first inspiration, the one who made me want to be a classical singer. She was my age when she was discovered singing on This Morning.
“I wanted to be just like her.
“That was the first time my mum says she saw me get excited about something. I was a very sad and lonely child and mum could never get me socialising and it was a very hard childhood until my singing took off.”
She had singing lessons and her teacher suggested she audition for Cantamus.
“My life changed forever from then on,” says Lucy of the Mansfield girls’ choir who she would tour the world with.
“That experience helps me when I perform now,” she admits.
“And it’ll help no end with the up and coming tour with Collabro.”
She will join the theatrical boy band, who won Britain’s Got Talent in a final seen by ten million people, on their debut tour next year, including the Royal Concert Hall in January.
“I know this will be very different because I’ll be doing it on my own and that’s so daunting,” says Lucy, adding that the tour is “one of her dreams”.
“I was so nervous when I went on the programme because I didn’t have the safety and comfort of being in the middle of three rows of girls. I never realised how important that was until I did it on my own. And it overwhelmed me.
“At the first Britain’s Got Talent audition, when I was singing in front of Simon Cowell and the other judges, in my head I was thinking ‘what am I doing!?’”
She adds: “I still get the same nerves that I did at that first audition. I don’t think they’ll ever go away. It’s who I am. I wish I was ultra-confident but I’m a very sensitive person. I’m starting to deal with it better. If there’s an article in the press with incorrect information, I do laugh it off now.”
She describes the past two weeks since the final as a “whirlwind”.
Last weekend she was in London at the Natural History Museum performing in front of a host of celebrities.
“It was a Samuel L Jackson charity event called One For The Boys, a campaign to raise awareness of male cancer and I was definitely star spotting. There was Lewis Hamilton, David Walliams, Amanda Holden, Pixie Lott, Holly Valance... and others who I thought I recognised but I’m not sure who they were,” she laughs.
An ego-deflating experience then for Colin Firth, Simon Pegg and Jeremy Piven, who were also there.
“Samuel L Jackson introduced himself to me and my partner David; it was an amazing thing to be a part of.”
And this week it was confirmed that she had signed a “multi-album deal” with Sony.
Although her mum was with her for the Britain’s Got Talent final, Lucy has not had time to visit her in Kirkby-in-Ashfield since then.
Maybe she doesn’t want to go back because it’s her mum’s fault for moving her to that part of Notts in the first place?
“I know!” she laughs.
“I don’t know what went through her mind.”
But she then adds: “As much as I wish I’d been brought up somewhere else, as she does, the reason I went through what I did was probably to get me to the point I’m at now. Would I have found singing? Would I have carried it on? Would I have that passion I have now to never give up?
“Had my dad not left and I’d still been living in Leicester, I’d not have found Cantamus and I certainly wouldn’t have been on Britain’s Got Talent.
“I firmly believe that there’s a path for everyone and everything happens for a reason.”

Lucy Kay will join Collabro at the Royal Concert Hall on January 30. Tickets go on sale today at 10am priced from £19.50 to £38.50 and are available from the venue. Call 0115 989 5555 or go to trch.co.uk.

Collabro

Victoria Gray

February 2010

She is inbetween movement classes.
Eh?
“Thinking of different centrepoints for different emotions.”
Eh?
“When you have to take on a character from an opera, say, you’re being snooty you think of your chest and sticking it out and being pompous.”
Nope, don’t get that.
The classes, whatever they’re for, are part of an eight year course at the Royal College of Music in London which Bilsthorpe opera trainee Victoria Gray is half-way through.
It’s the stage at which Katherine Jenkins quit to become a popera star.
Victoria, 22, wouldn’t mind the fame and riches but her focus is on finishing the course and becoming a professional opera singer.
But she needs to raise £10,000 per year to carry on with the post-graduate degree then opera school.
“The tuition you get here is the best but it’s so expensive,” she says.
The figure covers the tuition fees. She pays the rent with a part-time job as a singing waitress.
A what?
“It’s a restaurant in Lancaster Gate called Bel Canto. People will be eating their dinner, the piano will start up and one of us will sing opera while walking around the tables. It’s such a funny concept but it really works.
“And it’s great practice. You’re testing out new pieces and new arias all the time.”
The former Minster School pupil was a member of Cantamus, the all girl choir based in Mansfield, travelling to Germany, Italy and China, where, in 2007, they were crowned World Choir Olympic Champions.
“I was with the choir for ten years and it’s where I got my passion for it and the necessary discipline,” she says.
Victoria was also the first singer to win The Nottingham Young Musician Competition, in 2005.
Dad, a former boxer, is a 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 he played trombone with the Edwinstowe Colliery Band.”
As a petite blonde Victoria knows she’s far from the traditional bulky opera singer.
“The first opera I saw, I thought it would be somebody fat with horns on their head, screaming.”
I’ve had those nightmares.
“But it was so much more than that. They were so physical and their acting conveyed every emotion you could possible imagine. And even though it was in Italian you’d be laughing with them, then crying.”
Aren’t most opera singers great hefers?
“No, not at all. These days you’re turned away if you’re overweight because you have to be so physically fit to sustain a role. I once had to leap on to a tenor’s back while singing.”
As part of a sponsorship deal with Mansfield’s Direct Recording Systems, Victoria will soon record a demo and video to help sell her to prospective sponsors.
So, following Katherine Jenkins isn’t out of the question?
“I really respect what she’s done in bringing opera to the masses but she’ll never have a career in an opera house. And that’s what I really want. To travel the world singing opera.”
You could do both.
“I’d love to eventually.”
So if Simon Cowell offered you an album deal singing Westlife opera style...?
“I would. It’d be a great way of earning the money to continue my studies.”
Should she make it as a professional singer Victoria will be following in the footsteps of another ex-Minster School pupil: Alvin Stardust
“Who?”
Ask your dad.
Maybe you should change your name to Victoria Starburst.
“I like that. I’m going to use that.”
You read it here first...

Victoria Gray, with Anthony Gregory, the Cantamus Ensemble and Michael Neaum, Queen Elizabeth School, Mansfield, Saturday February 20, 7.30 pm.
Tickets: £10, 01623 627764