Ex Pat Files: Leila Adu
Author: Richard Thorne
 |
| Photo - Claudia Fusacchia |
Leila Adu spent the last few summer months in New Zealand, returning to her current home in Rome shortly after a couple of performances at the Auckland Festival 2009.One was solo, the second with a high-quality and evidently familiar three-piece band of Chris O'Connor, Tom Callwood and Jeff Henderson. She might equally well have featured as part of Wellington's Jazz or Taranaki's WOMAD festival - or for that matter, anywhere else's fringe/avant-garde festival, such is her accomplished yet uncategorisable combination of voice and piano. Pictured here in a Joan of Arc-pose, which fits well with one of her live performance favourites, Leila blends 'Jean d'Arc' fortitude with artistic pragmatism and a surprising Kiwi realism.
Born in London, to a Kiwi mother and Ghanaian father, Leila Adu arrived in New Zealand with her mum aged four. Growing up in Linwood, Christchurch, she attended Richmond Primary, St Marks and then Christchurch Girls High. Her music training started at 10 with piano lessons, adding a "swathe of instruments" including clarinet, bassoon, and electric guitar during her teens, as well as classical singing tuition. Her first high school bands saw her performing with a flamingo pink Fender Stratocaster, she laughs now in admitting she was never very good on it.
"I'm not a great pianist, but I'm better than I am at guitar. Singing I have trained to quite a high level, but not piano, I use it as a tool. I was aware when I gave up all the other instruments that I was doing that so I could focus on chords - I only wanted to play chordal instruments - 'cos it's more helpful, not because I loved piano."
She moved to Wellington to study composition and electro acoustic music at Victoria University, graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree (First Class Honours), having majored in electronic music, and orchestration for theatre and film.
After the first year at uni Leila decided she wasn't into studying classical music, and wanted instead to listen to anything else - like industrial music, or gamelan which she had also been studying, along with Javanese classical singing.
She went to Bali to study a complex aspect of gamelan instrumentation for a month, spent four months in Ghana and also time in London. The Ghana experience still comes to her often, specifically the contrast from the easy life New Zealanders enjoy. She says her music still reflects an empathy with the hardships and suffering of many in "the global south".
Despite liking London she says she really wanted to write for orchestra and knew that she needed to first complete a degree in order to reach that goal. Her subsequent honours project orchestrating a French and a Chinese poem was a winner in the NZSO-SOUNZ Readings Awards, which earned her the chance to have the two songs performed by the national orchestra. She sang them herself in Mandarin and French.
Whilst at university she also recorded and released her first album 'Dig A Hole'. Her bandmates then including the illustrious likes of Francesca Mountford on cello, bassist Tom Callwood, guitarist Chris Palmer and drummer Chris O'Connor.
Following uni she moved to Melbourne for a year, returning to Wellington to work with producer David Long on her second album, the 2005 release 'Cherry Pie'. The band for this album included Long on guitars, Tom Callwood's double bass, Jeff Henderson on baritone sax and Rikki Gooch on drums.
"For 'Dig A Hole' we recorded with everything there, took some stuff out, a few overdubs and that was it. With 'Cherry Pie' I wanted time for post production to happen organically and knew Dave would be into that. I was really, really happy with it and what we did post production-wise."
By 2006 she was back in Europe where she is now resident.
"I was doing a lot of good music with great musicians in Wellington but I started to feel that the things I thought were interesting in NZ were being created by people I knew. It was time to play to a different audience and I found the local scene a bit closed at the time, I just got bored with it. In fact I really have seen a lot more good music in the underground scene in NZ than anywhere else, but I still am enjoying that thing of being in Europe where it is easy to get around."
She has family in London and Paris beckoned, as did Berlin, but was practical enough to follow her partner of the time to Rome, where it has proven both easier to get established as an artist and to earn a non-music living.
"I'm not a great pianist, but I'm better than I am at guitar. Singing I have trained to quite a high level, but not piano, I use it as a tool. I was aware when I gave up all the other instruments that I was doing that so I could focus on chords - I only wanted to play chordal instruments - 'cos it's more helpful, not because I loved piano."
She moved to Wellington to study composition and electro acoustic music at Victoria University, graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree (First Class Honours), having majored in electronic music, and orchestration for theatre and film.
After the first year at uni Leila decided she wasn't into studying classical music, and wanted instead to listen to anything else - like industrial music, or gamelan which she had also been studying, along with Javanese classical singing.
She went to Bali to study a complex aspect of gamelan instrumentation for a month, spent four months in Ghana and also time in London. The Ghana experience still comes to her often, specifically the contrast from the easy life New Zealanders enjoy. She says her music still reflects an empathy with the hardships and suffering of many in "the global south".
Despite liking London she says she really wanted to write for orchestra and knew that she needed to first complete a degree in order to reach that goal. Her subsequent honours project orchestrating a French and a Chinese poem was a winner in the NZSO-SOUNZ Readings Awards, which earned her the chance to have the two songs performed by the national orchestra. She sang them herself in Mandarin and French.
Whilst at university she also recorded and released her first album 'Dig A Hole'. Her bandmates then including the illustrious likes of Francesca Mountford on cello, bassist Tom Callwood, guitarist Chris Palmer and drummer Chris O'Connor.
Following uni she moved to Melbourne for a year, returning to Wellington to work with producer David Long on her second album, the 2005 release 'Cherry Pie'. The band for this album included Long on guitars, Tom Callwood's double bass, Jeff Henderson on baritone sax and Rikki Gooch on drums.
"For 'Dig A Hole' we recorded with everything there, took some stuff out, a few overdubs and that was it. With 'Cherry Pie' I wanted time for post production to happen organically and knew Dave would be into that. I was really, really happy with it and what we did post production-wise."
By 2006 she was back in Europe where she is now resident.
"I was doing a lot of good music with great musicians in Wellington but I started to feel that the things I thought were interesting in NZ were being created by people I knew. It was time to play to a different audience and I found the local scene a bit closed at the time, I just got bored with it. In fact I really have seen a lot more good music in the underground scene in NZ than anywhere else, but I still am enjoying that thing of being in Europe where it is easy to get around."
She has family in London and Paris beckoned, as did Berlin, but was practical enough to follow her partner of the time to Rome, where it has proven both easier to get established as an artist and to earn a non-music living.
