ABOUT HELLÉ |
| Coming from the beautiful city
of York, Hellé never felt like a small-town
girl and knew she was on the road to bigger and
better things. Hellé has been writing songs
and entertaining (Hellé claims!) family
and friends with ‘special’ performances since
the age of 10. It was pretty obvious to her family
that she enjoyed being in the spotlight and had
some real potential, so off she went: starting
singing lessons at secondary school and never
looking back. Hellé gives a lot of credit
to her singing teacher, Collette Henshaw, for
giving her the confidence and ability to let her
voice grow: ‘My singing lessons taught me how
to breathe and annunciate properly, how to sing
from the diaphragm and gave me the tools to really
build on my talent.’ |
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Her family had
a huge impact on Hellé love of music,
with her parents’ musical tastes influencing
her song-writing and singing playing a big
part in the family.
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| ‘We’d all sing
along to whatever music we were listening
to in the car, with my dad and I taking great
pride in having our own harmonies and solos.
Ryan (one of my and my sister’s best mates)
described car journeys in France with my family
as: ‘like being on holiday with the Von Trapps’.
I really think that singing with my family
helped me to understand the way that good
music was written and how much fun singing
always was.’ |
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SOUL SINGER |
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With a new education gained
from her singing lessons, Hellé tried her hand
at choral singing with York Youth Choir and fell in
love with the sound of voices arranged in harmony.
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She spent years singing
with the choir; performing a huge range of songs from
classical pieces to scores from musicals whilst building
up her vocal range.
Hellé caught a lucky break when she was offered
a part in ‘Kes!’, the musical adaptation of ‘A Kestrel
for a Knave’ by Barry Hines, performed at the York
Theatre Royal when she was 13. ‘There aren’t many
feelings that beat singing to a full house and being
in ‘Kes!’ was my first taste of real theatre and of
being around seasoned performers. Everyone was so
relaxed about being on stage but worked really hard.
I felt very much at home there.’
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| Hellé first
studio recording experience was at uni in Sheffield
when recording ‘I am a Singer of Songs’ and opened
up a new avenue of music to her. Not being able
to play any instrument to a performance level, and
watching D-Flava and Le Spy create instrumentals
using live recordings of session musicians, Hellé
realised that a computer could give anyone the ability
to make music. With the inspiration and back catalogue
of lyrics, Hellé decided to jump on the do-it-yourself
music band-wagon and take her musical future in
to her own hands.
With a lot of help from Christine Dryden and her
lovely friends at Project North East, Hellé
was given the chance to get this website up and
running to help her on the way to a new musical
plateau. A huge thank you goes out to Christine
and PNE for being an amazing support to struggling
artists all over the North East.
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