Aberdeen Grounding for Berlin Based Opera Singer

BERLIN based soprano Simone Easthope said growing up in Aberdeen has given her the grounding to remain calm in the most pressured of opera performances.

“It really gives you a groundedness, somehow I find that a lot of my friends now in singing are from similar backgrounds and it helps you stay sane because it is such a crazy business and just having that kind of background of just knowing that your feet are on the ground and you’ve come from a place where life is kind of easy in some ways and you don’t have to push people out of the way to get to work or anything like that, it gives you a kind of groundedness and calmness that you definitely have to draw on sometimes,” said Ms Easthope.

“It can be pretty crazy there are a lot of competing forces and there are a lot of things you have to do; like you’re singing, you’re worrying about where the audience is and keeping your costume straight and making sure you stay with the conductor and the orchestra and all of those things, so it is quite a stressful job and you have to be a really good multi-tasker,” she said.

“So again, why it is so important to keep a sense of calm, because if you panic all is lost,” laughed Simone Easthope.

Simone grew up in Aberdeen, attended Scone High School, began singing lessons with the Upper Hunter conservatorium, won a Kia Ora scholarship which took her to the Sydney Conservatorium, then to the Julliard School in New York and now she is a Berlin based opera singer.

Without the Upper Hunter Conservatorium of Music she said she would never have realised her potential as an opera singer.

“I wouldn’t have been a singer, one hundred percent I would not have been a singer because there was no other singing teacher anywhere around and if I hadn’t learnt to do it at that age then I probably would have done something else,” said Ms Easthope.

“I didn’t even know that opera existed until I started having singing lessons and I became interested, so if I hadn’t done that then I think I would have been something completely different,” she said.

“It’s pretty colourful and it’s definitely not a normal life, it’s basically freelance and you get some really interesting opportunities and you tend to live your life in a suitcase to a certain extent but I love it I wouldn’t do anything else,” said Simone Easthope.

Simone Easthope and her partner Benjamin Moser will be giving a performance tonight at the Upper Hunter Conservatorium of Music.

Simone and her partner Benjamin Moser are doing a series of performances in Australia and thankfully the Australian winter has been kind for Benjamin who is missing a German summer.

“My partner and I wanted to come to Australia and we’ve been together for more than five years so I thought it was high time,

“We organised this concert tour and we’re performing this concert all over so we performed in Wagga Wagga, we’ve just come back from north Queensland, we performed in Cook Town and in Cairns and after this weekend we go out to Young and we finish off in Sydney at the Schubert society,” she said.

“I wanted to show him this area so we are here for the longer time of eight days, but to see the barrier reef and the rainforest up north; especially because he has made the sacrifice of coming here in German summer and I promised him we’d get a bit of sunny weather while we were here and actually the weather has complied,” she laughed.

London based soprano Yvonne Kenny also has a connection to Aberdeen, where her mother lived and she spent holidays with her brother visiting her cousins in Segenhoe.

Simone grew up next door to one of those cousins and said it was “cool” to have a connection to Ms Kenny.

“It’s a small world, she’s called me a couple of times and I’ve done some work with her in Sydney and recently in London; we get a long really well,” Simone said.

Simone encourages other local young singers to work hard and create their own opportunities for a career in opera.

“I think first of all you need to be having lessons and you need to be hungry for experiences so you need to be interested in the arts, not just singing and not just music but also going to art galleries and reading history and seeing dance or seeing drama and also making your own opportunities because a big part of my early training was we had to organise our own concerts and that has been really useful for my career,” she said.

“Even if it doesn’t turn out that you do this job; that get up and go will be great for any career,” said Simone Easthope.

More information on the performance: Upper Hunter Conservatorium of Music.