All Angels: Heavenly Voices

Most teenagers, have, by the time they reach the ripe old age of 20, done little more than exchange sixth form for further education.

How remarkable, then, the story of The All Angels – four bright and talented young ladies who have just released their third album for Decca, the first two having sold half a million copies, earning the girls platinum discs, appearances at the Classical Brits and plaudits from the likes of Sir Paul McCartney. And they achieved all this while studying for their A levels! As they prepare to visit the Epsom Playhouse for the first time they are all still immersed in full-time education. Daisy, Charlotte and Melanie are just 20, Laura is the baby at 19.

Melanie explains that the girls were selected from a series of auditions carried out across the UK, to find a female counterpart to the successful male crossover groups taking the charts by storm.

‘It was the idea of Producer Steve Abbott and A&R Executive Tom Lewis from Universal, who had already worked with The Choir Boys.’

Melanie, from Shropshire, came through the auditions with flying colours despite being turning up late. ‘I was having a flying lesson at the time,’ she recalls. ‘My dad flies a glider over Long Mynd in Shropshire and when I got the chance to go up with him I just thought it was fantastic. When the chance of a flying scholarship came up at my school I just went for it – and got it. Now I’m putting in my hours to get my pilot’s licence. When I’m qualified I’ll be able to fly the girls from gig to gig!’

Precocious talent shone through as each girl auditioned. Daisy Chute - half American, despite a slight Edinburgh lilt in her voice – is busy reading music at King’s College, London, hoping to one day be a professional jazz and classical composer; Laura Wright, a Suffolk girl, is about to take up a scholarship at the Royal College of Music; Melanie is a linguist studying French and Spanish; while Clapham-born Charlotte is mixing her singing with her acting ability. She won a part in Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire at the age of 11, while at the National Youth Music Theatre. Since then she has acted opposite Michael Sheen and Cherie Lunghi in the film The Open Doors and has appeared with Caroline Quentin in Life of Riley for the BBC.

As a group the girls have grown closer and are finding new nuances within their angelic sound. ‘We’ve been lucky that there has not really been another rival girl group in the classical crossover field,’ says Melanie. ‘We’re so used to each other’s voices now that we even exchange parts from time to time, to give our sound a different feel.

‘I think we’re a lot closer, friendship-wise,’ adds Laura. ‘We’ve really bonded as people and that means our sound has bonded too. We’re able to criticise each other in a constructive way without anyone getting offended. That means the overall sound has improved.’

The third album – Fly Away – finds the girls spreading their wings a little more and taking their fans on a musical journey across America, via folk songs, musicals, spirituals and jazz. ‘We wanted the third album to have a theme,’ explains Laura. ‘As we were choosing material for the album a wave of optimism was sweeping through the Western World as Barack Obama emerged as President of the USA. His arrival affected everyone. For a lot of younger people, especially, it gave them something to look up to and some real values they could admire.’

The bubbly Daisy played a full part in choosing material for the album, thanks to some advice from her American mum, who shocked her by the revelation that she’s distantly related to President Obama! ‘My mum had already found out that I was related to George Washington. Then I learned that President Obama and I share British emigrant grandparents from about twelve generations ago!’

The girls are looking forward to taking their Epsom Playhouse audience on that same voyage of discovery that they made while working on the album. ‘And we’ve got so much more music now, Laura reminds me, “including songs that don’t appear on any of the albums but which always prove popular in concert.’ They can move effortlessly from the close harmony sound of Mr Sandman through syncopated jazz rhythms to sacred and early music. ‘It makes it more interesting for us, too, Melanie points out.

‘We hope to sing some of Daisy’s songs one day,’ chips in Laura, ‘but there are so many incredible songs out there for us to work on first. We’re still training, but we want people out there to know that we do sound as good live as we do on CD.’

And working with Katherine Jenkins in front of huge audiences last summer, did the girls’ self confidence and presentation skills a power of good. ‘She’s a very special personality with and incredible stage presence and we’ve learned a lot from her,’ says Daisy. ‘At first it was daunting being on the same stage, but we came to the conclusion that we were not competing with Katherine, only complementing her solos with our own four-part harmonies.’

So what for the future? The girls still have two albums to make under their current contract with Decca. Are any of them eyeing a solo career yet? There’s no rush to affirm. Melanie, Daisy, Laura and Charlotte are clearly enjoying being together and plan to stay that way until they’re way, way in to their twenties!

The All Angels appear in concert at Epsom Playhouse, Surrey on Thursday 8 April at 8pm. Box office: 01372 742555, www.allangelsofficial.com, www.twitter.com/all_angels.