Olivia Castle

Olivia Castle is a UK Jazz vocalist who has just released her debut album ‘Siren Song’. She has had a love of Jazz standards, American Songbook and Easy Listening repertoire since growing up watching her mother perform with a Jazz trio. It was only recently that Olivia discovered the full extent of her family’s history of Jazz performance, learning that her Romanian great-grandfather put together a Jazz band that toured around Europe during the 1920’s. The Padureano Jazz band performed regularly in Madrid and Paris, frequently entertaining the aristocracy and the Spanish Royal family. This Jazz heritage within her family has cemented her love for this kind of music.

Olivia has recently graduated with a first class honours degree in Drama and Theatre from Royal Holloway, University of London. Whilst at university her musical activities involved being a Choral Scholar in the much-acclaimed Chapel Choir, taking on multiple theatrical roles such as Mabel in ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ and singing with the university Big Band.

Olivia was runner-up in the BBC Radio 2 Chorister of the Year final, held at St Paul’s Cathedral in 2008, performing to a panel of judges which included Carrie Grant and Hayley Westenra, and an audience of 1500 in addition to the radio listeners. During this period Olivia also featured as a guest on two BBC Radio Suffolk shows. As part of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain she was privileged to perform at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall with greats like Daniel Barenboim and Gustavo Dudamel for two consecutive years, in 2011 and 2012. In 2011 she was also awarded the Diploma in Musical Theatre (dipGSA) from the Guildford School of Acting and completed her Grade 8 Singing, achieving a high distinction.

Over the past few years she has been fortunate to perform with the legendary Laurie Holloway and his trio, and the Malcolm Edmonstone trio through the Montgomery Holloway Trust, a summer school which trains up-and-coming young Jazz musicians (laurieholloway.com). She also performs regularly with the celebrated composer Denis King, whom Olivia met whilst performing as Dorothy in a production of ‘Wizard of Oz’, where Denis was the musical director (deniskingmusic.com). This production was particularly special to her and it is for this reason that the Judy Garland classic ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ features on the album.

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