Anna Leigh Vocal Studios (AVLS) is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary this month.
Started by Anna in September 2010 when she was 21, the Linskill Centre-based Anna Leigh Vocal Studios (AVLS) now boasts an impressive number of students of all ages and experience.
Along the way, Anna became North Tyneside Young Entrepreneur in 2012, won awards with her band, and sang as part of the 2012 Olympics.
We caught up for a coffee (in Linskill’s Café 32) to talk about the last 15 years and look forward to the future.
When did you first start singing?
“I started very young. I remember being about seven years old on a family holiday in Woolacombe Sands Holiday Park in North Devon.
“One evening during our stay, there was a talent competition and my parents suggested I enter. So up I got on the stage and sang Disco 2000 by Pulp. Just tapped my foot and sang.
“And I won – a little trophy! It’s in my studio now.
“As I grew up, I was into anything and everything, singing-wise: shows and competitions, school choir, and I sang in assembly, too. It was always the same song: Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing”. May seem like an odd choice but I had a deep voice for a little girl.
“When I was 13, I was pre-match entertainment for the Newcastle Falcons, singing in front of 6,500 people. I sang “Can’t Fight the Moonlight” and “Sex Bomb”!”
What prompted you to become a singing teacher?
“I did a performing arts foundation course at Newcastle College, covering singing, acting and dancing, even though I can’t dance. Following that, I did my degree at Sunderland University and that’s where I really discovered a love for teaching.
“One of the course modules involved going into primary schools and working on projects with the kids. We made little videos on litter and such like. It was pretty cool and I absolutely loved it.
“Around that time, my singing teacher introduced me to speech-level singing (a method of connecting the voice naturally across the singer’s vocal range) and the training courses run by the Institute of Vocal Advancement (IVA).
“She thought I should look into this in more detail, so I attended the IVA annual conference. I found it all fascinating and immediately started the course from there.
“To become fully qualified, It’s a 10-year course with exams and on-going training but it gave me the opportunity to work with some exceptional teachers from all over the world.
“I eventually completed my course just before Covid, and I’m now qualified as a mentor which is the highest level of qualification.
“When I started speech-level singing, no one in the immediate area was teaching it. Now, many of those doing so have worked for ALVS at some point.
“I’ve been lucky enough have had some incredible teachers working at the studio and the students have benefitted hugely from their vast range of knowledge and experience.
“Alex, who I am working with now, has a wealth of expertise in speech therapy and was a student of ALVS for 10 years. She understands both worlds!
“I prefer to teach by ear. If a student is struggling with part of a song, I can hear it and feel in my voice where it would be, either my chest voice or my head voice, and I can find it now on the piano rather than looking for it in the music. I just find it easier.”
Do you think singers need to understand the physiology behind their voice? Does it help them to become better singers?
“I would say that knowing a little does help.
“Some students may have been singing all their lives but they don’t know what goes on ‘under the bonnet’.
“Say you buy a guitar; you know the make, and you might know how to tune it, but when it comes to the voice, you might know absolutely nothing!
“If you understand what you are using, it certainly helps you to look after your voice.
“You don’t need to know everything in great detail but if you understand that it’s a muscle, it has to be warmed up, it can get tired, damaged, many things might affect it.
“It can be good to visualise what happens when you sing, to imagine the vocal cords stretching out, and the larynx lifting.
“You don’t want to get too technical because then students can get worried if they don‘t know all the details.
“The IVA method of teaching is based on sixteenth and seventeenth century principles from the Italian School of Singing, which is all about making sure the voice is relaxed and can move freely, so it’s important to pay attention to how it feels when you sing.
“A few years ago, I was volunteering at the Freeman Hospital, working with singers experiencing issues such as nodules or muscle strain, a whole range of issues with their voice.
“I was asked to run through some singing exercises with them during a video laryngoscopy so the consultant could see the problem as they were singing.
“During a free appointment, I was asked if I wanted to try it out, and so now I have a video of how my own vocal cords look when I sing!”
Are you still singing with your band?
I was doing a lot more with the band (Denature) before having my children (now one and five). But recently I have chatting with Stu Hagon who has been in my band over the years. Actually, he was one of my first students.
“We’re discussing maybe starting up at the end of this year again. Whether or not I would go back to a full five-piece band, that would be further in the future.
“It takes a lot of organising, coordinating diaries, getting the gigs, practicing. It’s like another business. But we did have some fantastic opportunities.
“I look back and think I can’t believe we did that.
“We made a couple of videos for our songs “Escape” and “Time” with director Chris Lavelle, who is a National Television award winner.
“My Aunty is an art teacher at Sunderland University and has some connection to Chris. She showed me a music video he’d directed and I thought I’d love to do something similar.
“I contacted him, hoping that he would want to work with us, and he did! There were lots of conversations, and a lot of work, but it was worth it. We won ‘Best Music Video’ at the 2015 UBeat TV Awards.”
You sang at the Olympic Park as part of London 2012. How did that come about?
“For years, I was involved with VODA (the volunteering charity) and someone I knew through that organisation learned about my band (at the time, Anna Leigh and the Kings). He told me of an opportunity to apply to play on the main stage at the Olympic Park.
“The application process was very involved and there was a lot of red tape, but finally we were accepted.
“Myself, the guitarist and the violinist from the band put together an acoustic set.
“I remember being in London the night before we performed and Usain Bolt had just won the 100m. There were big screens everywhere and the atmosphere was amazing.
“The next day we were on stage in the Park! Definitely one of the highlights.
“It was a cool looking stage, too, like a giant shark’s mouth.”
Any future plans? What about the next five years, heading towards your twentieth Anniversary?
“We put on a students’ concert twice a year and I definitely want to continue running those.
“It gives the students a chance to meet up and to support each other, and we raise a lot of money for charity.
“We’ve done many charity fundraising events over the years: concerts, social evenings, karaoke nights, afternoon teas.
“I’d also like to run more workshops in the future, not just for solo singers and choirs but for anyone who uses their voice in their work and maybe just needs some help and advice.
“I’ve worked in SEN schools and in schools where pupils haven’t been able to be in mainstream education.
“Singing with me on a one-on-one basis is totally different for these kids. It gets them to really engage.
‘I’d love to use the arts to do more of that but, sadly, a lot of the funding that was available has disappeared now.
“Running workshops in schools is always great. I can still remember people coming into my school years ago to do workshops or run events, and thinking, yeah, I want to do that.
“What I love about my job is getting to know everyone and learn their stories. It’s lovely when students start lessons and you can see them grow in confidence, not just with their singing but also within other areas of their life.
“It’s amazing to think the business started 15 years ago. My plan was always to get my own studio, and now I’m here, I would never leave.
“When I started the business, I was seeing students from home. I moved into Linskill about a year after that. I’ve been here for 14 years, one of the longest tenants. They were still doing the renovations when I moved in!
“I love the community feel of Linskill. It’s become a hub for the area.
“There’s a great café, great businesses, lots of people around all the time. I love the social side. I worked from home again for a year during Covid and it definitely wasn’t for me. I love coming to work in the Centre.”
Website: annaleighvocalstudios.com
Facebook: Anna Leigh Vocal Studios
