One of Britain’s top recording artists is back on stage. Katie Melua tells Rosanna Greenstreet about her new album, making friends with Santa and singing with the choir
When Katie Melua stumbled upon music by the Gori Women’s Choir on Spotify back in 2014, it was to spark a long and fruitful chain of events: a sequence that would take the Surrey raised recording artist back to Georgia – the ex-Soviet country where she was born in 1984 – spawn a new album and culminate in a European tour which hits Surrey and London this month.
“I was mesmerised by their sound, by the richness, by how they would swoop down the tonal system. I felt like I was listening to some ancient woodwind orchestra or some singular creature out of an old book,” says Katie, who moved to Redhill at the age of 13 and went to the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon.
Katie’s father was a heart surgeon, and in the early Nineties the family moved to the West from newly independent Georgia, where it was difficult to find well-paid work. Settling initially in Belfast, they left behind all their relatives, including Katie’s maternal grandparents with whom they had lived in Tbilisi. It was on a visit home in September 2014 that Katie engineered a meeting with the choir.
“Georgia’s a small country and everyone knows everyone,” explains Katie. “I found a number for the choir and gave them a call. I said that I was a big fan of their work and I’d love to meet them.
"Winter is reflective. It's the only time we get to slow down"
“The women all live in the city of Gori. They are sponsored by the mayor and practise three times a week, but for one week in September they go on an annual retreat to a remote village up in the mountains, about an hour’s drive away. There they rehearse every day. I didn’t really know where it would lead, but I met them up there in the village and heard them live, and I was completely blown away.”
The 24-strong Gori Women’s Choir was founded in 1970 and three of the singers have been members since they were 15. Many of the women have other work commitments and families to care for, but during its first 15 years the choir performed all over the USSR. In recent times, however, the touring has tailed off.
“With the break-up of the Soviet Union, the economy and infrastructure of Georgia collapsed, and in the past 10 years the choir have only done a few shows,” says Katie, who was keen to collaborate with the women but unsure as to how it might work.
“I didn’t know how on earth their Georgian polyphonic modern classical sound would mix with a Western pop singer like myself.”
Back in the UK, however, an idea began to take shape.
Pip
Katie Melua and the Gori Operatic Choir shot in Georgia for BMG by Pip
“As winter set in, I found that I was craving a particular type of album. I wanted to hear something new, but with a touch of how I felt when I listened to a Christmas album by Frank Sinatra or Johnny Cash, or to a Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell record. Life is busy and I feel that winter is the only chance we get to slow down. It’s a reflective time and I wanted music that would rise to that challenge.”
The result was In Winter, a haunting album recorded in Gori, which includes renditions of the modern Georgian folk song If You Are So Beautiful, a traditional Ukrainian carol called The Little Swallow and Joni Mitchell’s River. Also in the mix are Rachmaninoff’s Nunc Dimittis and a song co-written by Katie and the great lyricist Don Black: Dreams on Fire.
Naturally, the album reflects Katie’s dual culture: in Plane Song she recalls playing with her brother in the rusty Soviet aircraft that littered Georgian fields after the civil war of the early 1990s, while A Time To Buy touches on the commercialism of Christmas in the West.
“I’d just turned nine when we moved to Belfast,” she explains. “Only my dad spoke English and my mum didn’t know how to shop. We didn’t have packaged food in Georgia: everything was straight from the farm or the market. So many things were a culture shock."
“As Christmas was approaching, my mum’s friend asked: ‘Have you made a list of what you’d like Santa to bring?’ In Georgia we had Father Winter: he brought fruit and sweets and that was it. We didn’t have the present-giving that you have over here. So I said: ‘But he’s never brought me presents before – why is he going to bring them this year?’ She said: ‘Well, he doesn’t go to Georgia, but he comes to the UK.’ I thought that was really unfair – for about two minutes. Then I opened up the Argos catalogue!”
Pip
Katie Melua and the Gori Operatic Choir shot in Georgia for BMG by Pip
As a child, Katie always wrote songs and wanted to perform, so the Brit School was a natural fit. Her talent was spotted by Mike Batt, the Farnham-based producer behind The Wombles, who visited the school looking for a singer. So, in September 2002, at the age of 18, she signed with his record label Dramatico.
Her first two albums, Call Off the Search and Piece by Piece, were international number ones, and she had Top 10 UK hit singles with The Closest Thing to Crazy and Nine Million Bicycles. By the release of her third album, Pictures, in 2007, Katie was the biggest-selling UK-based female artist in the world.
Now in her thirties, she is married to the former World Superbike Champion James Toseland: their wedding took place in Kew Gardens in 2012. In February 2015, the couple relocated to Barnes from their previous home just off busy Kensington High Street.
"Barnes is like Georgia: great neighbours and a village atmosphere"
“James found this gorgeous cottage, but what’s really perfect about Barnes is the community. It’s like being back in Georgia: there’s a good network of neighbours and a village atmosphere. It sounds silly, but I was so pleased when, six months after we moved in, my neighbour asked me to feed her fish while she was away!”
So, with the perfect location secured, might the couple’s next move be in the family direction?
“I would love to have kids,” reflects Katie. “I’ve just turned 32, and my dad’s a doctor, so you can imagine that he’s been telling me to crack on with it for quite a few years! It’s funny, I didn’t always think that I wanted a family, but now I feel like my body is telling me otherwise.”
For the moment though, her focus is the imminent European tour, in which Katie and the Gori Women’s Choir will perform the new album alongside classics from Katie’s back catalogue. It seems fitting that the UK leg should kick off in Surrey, where Katie spent her formative years. Guildford’s G Live is the venue, with the tour finishing up in Glasgow 10 days later. For now, it seems, that baby will just have to wait.
G Live, Guildford, Nov 23; Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Nov 27. For tickets katiemelua.com
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