Sarah had an avid interest in ballet and took lessons from the age of three, but soon found her dreams of becoming a professional dashed when she failed to be accepted to London’s Royal Ballet. She continued to focus on her dancing skills and in 1976 joined the dance group ‘Pan’s People’ before moving on to lead the mixed dance group ‘Hot Gossip’ who soon became extremely well known for their hit song ‘I lost my heart to a star ship trooper’. She married young; at the age of 18 to music manager Andrew Graham Stewart but the couple soon divorced leaving Sarah more determined than ever to get her life back on track.

In 1981 Sarah decided to turn her attention to the world of theatre, and auditioned for a role in the hit London musical ‘Cats’ by Andrew Lloyd Webber. After winning the role of Jemima she became close to Andrew and the two later married in 1984. Clearly besotted with Sarah, he wrote several musicals directly for her, such as ‘Requiem’ for which she earned her first Grammy nomination and the starring role of Christina Daae in the much loved classic ‘The Phantom Of The Opera’ alongside actor Michael Crawford. After a hugely successful run in the show she went on to tour England, Canada and the US with a variety of Andrew Lloyd Webbers music and released two solo albums of her own: ‘The Trees They Grow So High’ and ‘The Songs That Got Away’.

By 1990 Sarah Brightman and Andrew Lloyd Webber had decided to separate but remained close friends with Andrew giving Sarah the lead role in his latest musical ‘Aspects’ on Broadway shortly after their divorce had become official.

Sarah’s next big career move took her to LA where she decided to pursue her singing career further and met with producer Frank Peterson who helped her in the release of two albums: ‘Dive’ in 1993 and ‘Fly’ in 1995.

One of her most successful moments came when she performed a duet with fellow opera singer Andrea Bocelli titled ‘Time to say Goodbye’ (Con Te Partirò) the song sold more than 3 Million copies in Germany alone becoming the largest selling single to date. Her next album ‘Timeless’ or ‘Time to say Goodbye’ as it was titled in the United States contained various different duets and classical inspired tracks and has proved to be Sarah Brightman’s best selling album to date.

She went on to release several more albums over the coming years such as ‘Eden’ and ‘La Luna’ which received mixed but generally positive reviews from critics.

Sarah continues to have a strong career in the classical music world and has many new projects lined up for the future, including taking part in the popular UK TV show ‘Just the two of us’ in which professional singers are partnered with someone from in the Entertainment industry and must compete against fellow stars to win the show. This is due to start on January 2nd 2007.

Related posts:

1. Michael Crawford
2. The Phantom of The Opera
3. Andrea Bocelli

Originally born Michael Patrick Dumble-Smith on 19th January 1942 he spent much of his early life growing up in Salisbury, Wiltshire where he was raised by his mother and eventually his grandparents in Kent. He showed an interest in music and the arts from a very early age and began to pursue this taking part in a one off choir performance at St Paul’s Cathedral, London. He later went on to make his first stage appearance in a school production of Benjamin Britten’s Let’s Make an Opera as ‘Sammy the little sweep’ and was soon asked to play this character in a professional production of the play at the Scala Theatre in London. This is where Michael’s career really began to take off, and he was told that he should consider changing his name if he wanted to take things further in the business. Another actor was using Michaels real name, so after allegedly drawing inspiration from a ‘Crawford’s Biscuits’ truck he officially began to work under the name we all associate him with: Michael Crawford.

Michael went on to star in a number of plays with ‘Twelfth Night’ and ‘The importance of being Earnest’ being just a couple of the more popular ones.
In between these plays he also managed to find time to take part in several radio broadcasts and some early soap opera’s for the BBC such as ‘Sir Francis Drake’, ‘Two Living, One Dead’ and ‘Emergency Ward 10’.

In 1962 his blossoming film career also lead him to star alongside actor Steve McQueen in the movie ‘The war lover’ as well as a number of children’s films.
However he was soon drawn back to his love of the theatre by an offer to star in his first Broadway hit ‘Black comedy/White lies’ alongside fellow Broadway newcomer Lynn Redgrave. After a while film roles and theatre production offers slowly began to dry up and it was not until 1973 when one of his biggest career breaks of all time would present itself. Michael Crawford took the part of ‘Frank Spencer’ in a new BBC comedy series titled ‘Some Mother’s do Ave Em’ and it soon became one of the most popular TV series of all time, with fans instantly warming to Crawford’s portrayal of the clumsy and haphazard Frank Spencer.

The show came to an end in 1978 but this certainly didn’t mean the end of the line for Michael, as he was later offered the part of ‘The Phantom’ in a new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical production ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ alongside Sarah Brightman. The show became a huge cult phenomenon and has become one of Michael Crawford’s best known achievements to date and earned him several prestigious awards including an Olivier Award (Best Actor in a Musical), and a Tony Award (Best Performance By An Actor in a Lead Role, Musical).

His most recent theatre role has been that of ‘Count Fosco’ in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest musical ‘The woman in white’ in 2004 although due to ill health he was forced to end his run earlier than hoped.
He is considered as a hugely charitable man who has donated vast amounts of money to good causes over the years, and can still be seen performing in various different concerts around the world.

Related posts:

1. The Phantom of The Opera
2. Sarah Brightman
3. Andrea Bocelli

After realizing his talent as a singer from a very young age Josh enrolled in the Interlochen Arts Camp and began to perform in school musicals and plays, his love of this also prompted him to take on singing lessons in his spare time. His vocal coach soon introduced him to a number of influential people in the music business and eventually Josh was offered a recording contract with Warner Brothers Records. His style of singing was versatile, ranging from classical to pop making him a great artist to work with.

He was lucky enough to perform with British singer Sarah Brightman on her 2000-2001 ‘La Luna’ tour and was even featured on the DVD of the show. Josh also regularly performed at various different charity and benefit events around the world and at ‘The family celebration’ event in 2001 he was introduced to David E Kelley who was so impressed by his voice he hired him to appear in his hit TV show at the time ‘Ally McBeal’. Josh played the role of Malcolm Wyatt and wowed viewers with his stunning performance of the song ‘You’re still you’ emails came flooding in begging to see Josh Groban on the show again so he was brought back the following season to perform ‘to where you are’.

His growing popularity was evident when he released his self titled debut album ‘Josh Groban’ in 2001 and it went from gold to double platinum in the space of just a year.
Josh performed alongside British classical singer Charlotte Church at the winter Olympics in February 2002 singing ‘The Prayer’ and later went on to perform at The Vatican, Rome in a special event alongside stars such as Lionel Richie, Sting and Ronan Keating.

In 2003 Josh Groban’s second album was released titled ‘Closer’ and he hoped to give fans more of an insight into his personality, it went in at number 11 on the Billboard Charts but quickly rose to number one with his cover version of the hit ‘You raise me up’ proving to be extremely popular with his older fans.
Josh has featured in several movie soundtracks over the past few years including ‘Troy’ and the animated hit ‘The Polar Express’.

In November 2004 Josh Groban released his second DVD titled ‘Live at the Greek’ and was also nominated for a string of awards that same year including an American Music Award and a Grammy. His latest single ‘You are Loved’ was released in September 2006 exclusively to AOL’s first listen. The song was taken from his third album ‘Awake’ which was released on November 7th 2006. Josh is also planning several new ventures for 2007 including a world tour where you can get a taste of this talented young musician’s music for yourself.

Related posts:

1. Sarah Brightman
2. Andrea Bocelli
3. Hayley Westenra

In 2005’s “Odyssey” featured a mix of classical, pop, Celtic, and new age music. In August 2006, Westenra joined Celtic Woman.

Related posts:

1. Josh Groban
2. Sarah Brightman
3. Wicked

My local country station decided to not have any Dixie Chicks on their playlist for close to three years now. It’s ironic because I live in a democratic state. If the boycott is about politics my local country radio station should have increased the Chicks rotation on the radio.

Obviously the decision to boycott the Chicks was handed down from Clear Channel, the owners of the station. I’m so glad they have took it upon themselves to decide that all country music fans should not listen to the Dixie Chicks.

The Thomas Chronicles has an interesting post regarding the shift of the fanbase. I happen to live on the east coast.

Soak it in chicks !

Related posts:

1. Josh Groban