Jessie Leov Music

GRAMMYS GALORE!

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A few of my absolute favourite musicians have just won Grammys! Time to celebrate!

Jacob Collier

I’ve been rather obsessed with this young jazz sensation since a few years ago when my music lecturer showed us one of his youtube videos. JC has since continued to create incredibly innovative re-imaginings of classic songs as well as releasing his self-written, recorded and produced album In My Room – which has now got him two Grammys! NO-ONE DESERVES THEM MORE! He’s been touring the world with his one-man show for months now…… definitely on my must-see-live list.

 

 

Pentatonix

I’ve been a huge fan of this a cappella quintet ever since seeing them win The Sing Off in 2011. They’ve only conquered the ENTIRE WORLD since then and continue to bring a cappella into the mainstream music scene! Their Christmas albums in particular are to die for.

 

Snarky Puppy

This jazz ensemble has been on my radar for the past year or so ever since their collab with Lalah Hathaway went ‘viral’. I’ve brought myself up to speed with their music by listening pretty obsessively since then and their latest album TOTALLY deserved this Grammy award. Big dream of mine to see them live one day!

We came 5TH at the 2016 Sweet Adelines International competition in Vegas!

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As a Sweet Adelines member you can be a member of more than one chorus and at the current time I am a member of:

  1. Greater Auckland chorus (currently on long term leave as I’m overseas)
  2. Christchurch City Chorus (I’ve been an Out of Town member [OOTM] since Jan 2016)
  3. Lions Gate Chorus (I just moved to Vancouver to study)

Let’s just say I kind of like singing barbershop and being involved in this organisation…… just a little bit!

Christchurch City Chorus  has been preparing to travel to Las Vegas to represent NZ at the international Sweet Adelines Competition and compete against around 30 odd choruses from around the world (after winning the NZ national competition in 2015).

As an OOTM, I attended coaching weekends on average once a month from January to August (sneakily flew to Canada at the end of August) and then reunited with the ladies in Vegas on October 13th for the contest.

My delightful Mama is also a member so I got to spend the 10 days in Vegas with her! Who could possibly wish for more!

This was my second time at the annual international competition after competing with Greater Auckland Chorus in October of last year (see blog post here).

It was a CRAZY 10 days. Most of us arrived on Thursday 13th and we then spent the next 6 days rehearsing for 5-6 hours a day. It was exhausting but exhilarating! We had our favourite coaches coming in to work with us – Darlene Rogers, Lynne Smith and Lea Beverly, along with short appearances from Ryan Heller, Jim + Renee and other celebrities!

We had a joint show on the Tuesday night with Rönninge Chorus 0our directors have been good friends for many years and this joint concert has become a tradition. We performed our semi-finals and finals packages which was a great test run. It was a real pleasure and, of course, we were all blown away by Rönninge.

Long story short, semifinals day came along, we hit the stage in our green dresses (pictured below – spot me and my mother behind me to the left) and after a NERVE WRACKING announcement of the ten finalists, we were announced as contest #10 in the finals! Oh the agony of having to sit through the announcement of the nine other finalists and not knowing if ours would come next…. I don’t know if I have ever been in such a nervous state IN.MY.LIFE.

Friday was spent rehearsing for the finals and Saturday was another early morning to do our make-up, have breakfast, get our hair styled, warm-up, rehearse and get back on the stage! We were so pumped to get out there and perform the package that we’d been preparing for so long. And we nailed it. The reaction from the crowd was amazing. It was over so quickly and we couldn’t be any prouder of how it went.

Another long story short, we received 5TH PLACE and the MOST ENTERTAINING CHORUS AWARD! Our director Virge put an unspeakable amount of time and effort into conceptualising the finals package and bringing it to life, it was honestly her baby, so it was such a treat for her to be able to go up and receive that award. We were super happy! It was the end of a magical time spent with the amazing ladies of CCC.

I look forward to the next time I have the opportunity to learn, grow, sing and perform with this wonderful group of women. But for the next 6 months I will be singing with the Lions Gate Chorus in Vancouver – I’m so ready to learn from them! xx

 

The Nelson gang ready to perform in the Finals!

**ADVICE for future competitors who will compete at the MGM Grand – the air is VERY DRY. There is air conditioning everywhere (and cigarette smoke near the casinos). We were advised to leave the air conditioning on in our rooms while we were away and turn it off when we get back, and keep it off at night. I went as far as to bring a humidifier with me to leave on 24/7 in our room. Sickness spread through our chorus far and wide unfortunately, I managed to avoid it myself ONLY JUST – by non-stop hydrating, taking multitudes of vitamins, washing my hands a lot, trying to still eat fruit and vegetables over the 10 days, and just generally looking after myself very carefully. Unfortunately a number of our chorus were struck down with a terrible flu. Some disturbingly effective steroids of some kind allowed them to still get on stage with us. Most important thing: look after yourself and keep those vocal cords MOIST!

 

 

 

ZEAL comes 3rd in Rising Star Contest + 2nd Place in Pan Pacific!

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ZEAL at Aotea Centre for the Rising Star Contest.

You are now looking at the Under-25 women’s barbershop quartet ranked 3rd in the WORLD and 2nd in the Pan Pacific Region!!!!

Since competing at the national competition in Wellington in April we have been rehearsing and performing like crazy people to get ourselves up to scratch. With coaching from some barbershop greats like the magnificent Carole Persinger, Lori Lyford and Kim Vaughn, we transformed our ballad and added some sparkle to the showmanship plan for our uptune.

In the weeks leading up to the big day, we had an intense performance schedule lined up including a trip to Nelson in early July where we performed at a number of schools promoting the Young Women in Harmony organisation. We really wanted to work on overcoming our nerves and all the performance experience was the perfect way to achieve this. It also kept our vocal cords nice and warm and stretchy since we were doing so much singing!

ZEAL on stage at Aotea Centre.

The Sweet Adelines Rising Star Contest and Pan Pacific Harmony Festival were held in conjunction with each other at the Aotea Centre in Auckland on July 13-14. We were drawn to go first so had the pleasure of getting up at 4am so we could be fully dressed, hair-styled, made-up and warmed up by our 9am backstage call.

It was all over in a FLASH – and we felt incredibly happy with how we did. We had worked so hard and gave the best performance we could have hoped for. When we got off that stage – WOW, the adrenaline! We were so stoked with how far we’d come since April and our commitment to the performance we’d just done.

We had really high hopes for the contest but knew there was some very strong competition so we were happy with our 3rd placing in Rising Star and 2nd place in the Pan Pacific Festival.

Being part of a quartet is such a special journey. There are always ups and downs but the thrill of performing with your sisters on stage and leaving with the adrenaline running through your veins is addictive. I’m excited to see where our journey continues to take us! x

 

ZEAL with previous Rising Star champions, C’est La Vie!

 

 

My quartet ZEAL won at our first ever contest!

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ZEAL performing at Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington.

ZEAL first formed in around April 2015 when I finally joined the Greater Auckland Chorus (a Sweet Adelines women’s barbershop group) after having already lived in Auckland for TWO YEARS! I met two lovely young gals at GAC who were looking for a fourth member of their quartet. It was almost like fate as I was crossing my fingers that I would be able to get myself into a quartet since I had always dreamed of doing this….. so just like that things were off to a great start.

Our first ever performance was at the Auckland regional Young Women in Harmony competition, held at Macleans College in June. I was unbelievably nervous, which was unusual since I’m used to performing solo but I think something about singing tenor in a quartet is quite exposing! But, I got through it and I was PROUD!

 

ZEAL’z first ever performance, 19th June 2015 guest performing at YWIH contest.

 

We spent most of last year getting a couple of contest songs together as preparation for the national Sweet Adelines competition which just took place – we’re all students so we have to work around each others schedules to find time to practice but we do what we can.

I was back home to Nelson for the summer but when I returned in February 2016 it was full steam ahead with only 8 or 9 weeks lead up to contest. We did a test run of our contest package at a chorus performance 10 days before competition, it went alright but we were definitely getting ready to put our BEST ever performance onto that stage.

On the afternoon of the 29th April, we hit the stage of the Michael Fowler Centre. To say we were nervous was an understatement but we went out there and we held it together! Our ballad was the lovely ‘At Last’ and we sang popular uptune ‘Driving Me Crazy’.

In terms of the results of the competition, we had absolutely zero expectations – we just wanted to do the best performance we could and to be able to say that we gave it 100%. Suffice to say, we were extraordinarily shocked and thrilled when we received 3rd place and the Novice Quartet award (for the best first time competitor)!

HOORAH!

It was such an amazing weekend and the support we received from our fellow chorus members, quartet competitors, and Sweet Adelines was utterly astounding.

And now we prepare to compete in the International Rising Star Youth Quartet Contest…. bring it on! xx

SUPER excited after receiving our 3rd place medals and the Novice Quartet award!

MUST-LISTEN new collab from Jacob Collier!

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That’s right…… two incredible musical acts have joined forces to create the above MASTERPIECE. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly suggest you click play.

Jacob Collier is a young jazz prodigy from London, raised with music in his blood – he can play pretty much any instrument, creates intricate a cappella arrangements, writes authentic and fresh original music, and also wrote, recorded and produced his album In My Room in. his. room.

Snarky Puppy is a musical collective led my Michael League who play groovy instrumental music and, for their albums Family Dinner Vols 1 & 2, collab with singers and make awesome tracks such as this one. They’ve been around since 2004 and have released many many albums, toured the world a bunch of times and continue to make addictively fresh sounds.

I think what makes these artists stand out from the crowd, in my opinion at least, (other than talent, hard work, general creativity) is innovation, authenticity, a never-ending passion for music and a commitment to create music that genuinely stirs their souls. And then they give us the pleasure of being able to hear that music, for which I am eternally grateful.

Look out for more fantastic tracks from these guys!

 

 

 

 

 

My music is coming to your screens!

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Hey everyone,

Hope you have had a fantastic first month of 2016!

Check out the BRAND NEW trailer for Birds of a Feather by Working Edge Productions – a documentary I wrote some music for last summer. Doesn’t it look great?! And the first piece of music you hear in the trailer is one of my tracks… *jumps up and down excitedly*. Let me tell you, this is a maaaassive buzz for me!

I hope this is the first of many such projects that I can get involved with in the future!

The documentary is about an annual boat race held on the Waikato river each year, the Great Waikato Seagull race, where people race using British Seagull outboard motors – which date back to WWII and were once known as ‘the best outboard motors in the world’.

Birds of a Feather is a Silver Award winner for the Spotlight Documentary Film Awards 2015 and an Official Selection Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival 2016. There will be a DVD release of the documentary and it will hopefully be appearing on our TV screens sometime in the future.

It was actually a whole year ago (last summer) that I spent many hours composing the pieces I contributed to the documentary. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to get involved in this project. Hard work reaps rewards!

On a side note, you may notice I have revamped my website – it really needed a renovation and I’m pretty happy with where it’s at now.

There’s a new biography page which contains some exciting little tidbits about what 2016 is bringing – do check it out!

I’m so looking forward to having more awesome musical experiences this year and making the most of every opportunity I can get my hands on. In the meantime, I am enjoying the lovely summer weather in Nelson before I head to back to Auckland in a couple of weeks.

I hope you’re all enjoying the sun!

Until next time,

Jessie Xx

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