Get a taste of Hollywood when Australian soprano and opera singer, and ANU alumni Ali McGregor, comes to town.
The Melbourne-based singer and producer began her career as a principal soprano with Opera Australia before running away with the circus, joining the cabaret/variety show La Cliqueโs La Soiree.
The ARIA Award-nominated star has performed around the world, from the UKโs Glastonbury Festival to New Yorkโs Carnegie Hall.
McGregor has also performed with the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras and served as artistic director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, among other achievements.
She is banding together with the Berlin-based SIGNUM Saxophone Quartet to perform an array of music โfrom Berlin to Hollywood, via a shadowy nightclub, a Shakespearean tragedy, a Broadway musical and a Wild West rodeo, before arriving somewhere over the rainbowโ.
The show will hit ANUโs Llewellyn Hall stage from 7-9pm on 3 May. Tickets are available at anu.edu.au/events/the-hollywood-songbook
Whatโs your favourite song in the show and why?
A Stranger Here for Myself by Kurt Weill is one of my favourite songs in any show. I adore Kurt Weill and especially the music he wrote after he arrived in America; it seems to me to be the most intriguing blend of German frankness, avant-garde angularity and American melodic hope.
What do you love the most about the music of the time period this show covers?
For me, the music we are exploring in this show โ that of immigrants and their families coming to America after the wars โ is a delicious marriage of European classicism and 20th-century American optimism.
Like bowerbirds, these composers seemed to take equal inspiration from the old and new, writing the very fabric of this new era, weaving hope and light into the darkness and loss of the early 20th century.
Many of your shows, including this one, showcase not just your skills but the talents of others. Whatโs your favourite part of collaborating with others?
Collaboration is key. I can’t imagine ever creating on my own โ art has always been a conversation for me, not just with my onstage collaborators but also with the audience. It feels even more urgent than usual to see life through other people’s eyes. To try on stories like coats in a railway station’s lost and found. I want to feel what it is to live a different life and experience love and loss through a different lens. I also relish the challenge of taking myself out of my comfort zone and using my ears and voice in a new way. I certainly didn’t have a collaboration with a saxophone quartet on my life bingo card, and now here we are!
What do you remember of your time living, working and studying in Canberra?
I spent two years at Australian National University studying opera. I was fresh out of high school and had only just decided to try being an opera singer. I had literally tossed a coin, deciding whether to use jazz or classical voice, and I was hungry for adventure. I worked every spare hour waitressing at the Rydges Hotel (Rydges Canberra) and rollerblading around Lake Burley Griffin, learning my music through my Walkman earphones.
I ran away one summer to study in Italy and never came back. Instead, I finished my studies in the UK, but I still hold Canberra very fondly in my little singer’s heart!
You have brought a few shows to Canberra. What do you love the most about performing here?
I haven’t performed in Canberra in more than a decade! This time I get to perform in the first theatre I ever performed in, back at my alma mater, where I made my stage debut in a concert alongside composer Nigel Butterley. The first entry in my career scrapbook is an article in The Canberra Times from 1992. I remember buying multiple copies for my entire family! So, this will be a very special concert for me.
Both you and your husband, comedian Adam Hills, have busy schedules. How do you handle all of that between looking after your children and finding a gap for downtime?
The life/work/family balance struggle is real. No one can do it all with grace, and I am no exception.
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