Jessie Leov Music

jessie leov music

New year, new opportunities #2019

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Having already made our way into the second month of the New Year, I feel like it’s time to stock of what has happened so far.

January was an interesting month. It wasn’t as productive as I had hoped but that may have been due to the New Year holiday period, my mid-month 8-day trip to the North Island, and my 4-day stint in Christchurch/Auckland at the end of the month.

Despite my travels I did a couple of gigs with my solo singer/pianist hat on and also completed a few projects for clients. I was fortunate to be contracted to compose and produce the music for this short promo video for Little Pig Building Company, created by Lifeform Labs.

It was a great experience and I hope to continue building up a portfolio of music for screen this year. My goal is to start gaining professional experience in the screen industry (film/TV) as I would love to get into production sound or post-production music/sound. This year is all about searching for opportunities and saying yes!

While I’m currently based in Nelson, I’ll be taking a 5-day trip to Auckland/Hawkes Bay to reunite with my quartet, run some school workshops and rehearse for the upcoming Sweet Adelines Quartet contest in Dunedin which we’re competing in for the third time.

Alongside this I’ll be working on finishing the score for my musical theatre collaboration ‘Take Back The Universe’, with my friend and playwright/composer/songwriter/musician Marlon Richards, which will be getting some workshop exposure later this year! This will take place in Wellington where I’m most likely heading sometime in the coming months.

Basically I have plenty to keep me occupied, most of which doesn’t bring in much dosh at this very moment but I’m willing to keep putting in the hard yards and build up my network so I can live that freelance self-employed creative life! That’s all for now Xx

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!

 

 

 

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