Singer Carly Paoli delighted with shortlisting
“It’s quite special for the first album to get that kind of recognition,” says Carly, who didn’t win – but is revelling in the achievement.
“I put an immense amount of work into the album, and it is unique in that all the songs I recorded on it were performed first. I very much had creative control and managed the overall choices of the repertoire which is also quite unusual these days. It is that creativity that I have always had in my inner self and that I want to express in the songs. I would find it inhibiting if I was limited and told what I had to sing.
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Hide Ad“It is a huge honour to be nominated, but it is the recognition really, especially as an emerging artist. I have done a lot of performances in Italy, probably more in Italy than in the UK. My most recent concert in the UK was at the Cadogan Hall, a day after Valentine’s Day. There was a fantastic review in the Mail on Sunday with the headline ‘Nobody does it better.’ During the evening, it was the first chance I had had to sing songs from my debut album with a full orchestra as they should be done. Fingers crossed, I would now like to do more over here. I never came into it wanting to be a recording artist. I love to be on stage and to have that connection with the audience.
“So this is an opportunity, but it is also very encouraging. You put so much effort into something, and then you get the recognition and you see that it has been appreciated.”
“And the next album is all ready to be released (on August 24), It is a live album, live at the Cadogan Hall from that night. It was such a wonderful show. The adrenaline was pumping.
“We were wondering whether it would be possible to have a DVD of that concert. When we finished it, there was nothing to tweak. There were no enhancements to be made. It just felt such a natural thing to do to turn it into a live album. It featured lots of songs that I have known for years, songs that have inspired me.
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Hide Ad“The DVD will be at a later date. The album is very eclectic. It has got Dvorak’s Song to the Moon and we have got Edith Piaf meets Broadway and also Disney classics, Disney through the ages, from Snow White going into Sleeping Beauty and coming right up to date with Alan Menken’s Beauty and the Beast.
“The other important thing is that on the album there is a bonus track, a song called Liberty by Walter Afanasieff who did My Heart Will Go On for Celine Dion and All I Want For Christmas is You by Maria Carey. He composed and wrote a song for me that will celebrate and remember 100 years since the end of the First World War. I recorded the song in the studio with the Invictus Games Choir and the funds from the song will go to Help For Heroes.”
Signed to the independent London-based record company ABIAH, Carly released her debut album Singing My Dreams in 2017. The record charted at number two.
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