From Messiah to Cats, this award-winning singer shares her multi-faceted musical passions.

My earliest musical memories at home were listening to the kinds of artists my parents were into. My father was a drummer in an amateur band and he would play gigs every weekend, while my mother was more into Ella Fitzgerald and Andy Williams – the crooners of the day, I suppose. I was always fascinated by the way Ella could do something extraordinary with a familiar song. My first memories of singing, in fact, would be of singing-along to her!

At school it was completely different. My music teacher would explain to us more about the classical side of things, and she introduced me to Handel. We did Messiah in the school choir and we also did a show called The Musical Adventures of the Boy Mozart, which was sort of the Mamma Mia! of its day.

The first time I sang solo on stage was in Mozart’s Bastien and Bastienne in the role of Bastienne. I had one aria to sing where I remember clearly choosing to sob at the end, to which the parents gasped in horror! I asked my father about this...