Voice In A Million’s Flagship Academy is based in Chertsey, Surrey, and
Sessions: run on a weekly basis on a Sunday at The Tulk Hall Theatre, in Addlestone.
10.30am – 1.30pm
Voice In A Million, The Studio, Drew Cottage, Vicarage rd, Egham, Surrey, TW20 8NN
Contact: 01784 438700
E-mail: team@voiceinamillion.com
Voice In A Million Creative Producer Jo Garofalo & Voice In A Musical Director Neil Shrimpton run the Academy and work with many talented children from the South of England.
Live Performances:
London 02 Arena – 1st Feb 2011
The Orchard Theatre, Dartford 24th November 2011
London Wembley Arena – 25th Feb 2012
London Birmingham LG Arena – 28th April 2012
Jo Garofalo (Creative Producer of the Voice In A Million project)
Jo Garofalo (nee Doyle) was born and raised in Hull. Following her graduation from the Malet Lambert School she attended the Laine Theatre Arts in Epsom at the age of 16. As a teenager Jo developed her craft whilst training and by regularly performing on the club circuit in the North of England.Upon leaving college Jo went on to perform in panto and the summer season throughout the UK and also appeared in the West End stage production of The Rocky Horror Show, followed by the UK tour of Patsy Cline’s show. Jo also worked extensively with Jim Davidson in summer seasons and appeared in shows in Germany, Cyprus, Bosnia, entertaining the British Troops.
For the past 12 years Jo has been a director for Classic Media Group who have produced music and documentary programming for television and DVD. Based at the world-famous Shepperton Film Studios, Jo has worked with large number of internationally recognized artists including Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones), Rick Wakeman (YES) Greg Lake (the voice of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer), Jim Davidson, Elkie Brookes, Rolf Harris, The Drifters, Leon Russell, JJ Cale, Dionne Warwick, Joe Pasquale and many more. Jo is currently working as creative director on Classic’s latest project, Voice In A Million in association with The British Association For Adoption & Fostering (BAAF).
This project came about due to Jo and her husband adopting their Son, Samuel from Tangiers, Morocco in 2006. Their journey through adoption was not without its problems and though theirs has a very happy ending they felt as a couple that the UK system was a difficult system to navigate. Now three years later and having raised money for the orphanage where they adopted their son from, they decided they really wanted to do something more substantial in the UK.
Neil Shrimpton (Musical Director)
Neil was born in Hammersmith, London & raised in Surrey. From an early age he showed a natural talent for music, graduating from The London College of Music as a classical pianist in 1992 and with a post-graduate Fellowship diploma in Composing for Film & Television the following year.
After a brief spell working solely as a recital pianist & piano accompanist Neil joined Surrey Arts as a peripatetic piano teacher, a role he still enjoys to this day.
Not content with just having a musical ‘day’ job, since 1998 Neil has spent most evenings & weekends working in musical theater as the Musical Director or piano accompanist for a number of amateur groups in the Surrey & South London area.
Neil has now been a Musical Director for close on 50 productions of one sort or another, from the ‘classic’ musicals such as My Fair Lady, Carousel & Oliver, to the more modern Forbidden Planet & We Will Rock You (a personal favourite), various Panto’s as well as numerous revues & compilation type shows which have often required him to exercise his compositional & arranging skills to produce orchestrations – often from scratch.
Neil’s association with Jo Garofalo began in 2007 through one such amateur musical production and he then became involved with her newly formed Classic Musical Theatre Group – week long school holiday courses for children. As a music teacher Neil has always enjoyed working with children – evident by the fact that he is quite happy to spend the school holidays working with them when most teachers are glad of the break – but never dreamed that he’d be conducting over 5000 of them as he is tonight.
Having been raised by his grandparents from the age of 7 Neil has firsthand experience of how big an impact growing up without parents can have, right into adulthood, and he is proud to be a part of Voice In A Million’s aim to promote adoption & fostering.
In the words of the classic Queen song: “Can anybody find me somebody to love?”
Jenny Woolfries – (Guest Teacher)
Jenny has been performing from a very young age and loves every minute of it! Having started performing at ballet and tap school, her interests became more focused on the world of theatre. As an adolescent Jenny was an active member of both Feltham Young People’s Theatre and Riverside Youth Theatre playing lead roles in many pantomimes and musicals. Voice In A Million’s Creative Director Jo Garofalo first began working with Jenny whilst directing the Staines-based Zodiac amateur dramatic group. Jenny recently played Nancy in Oliver and thanks to the brilliant production; received fantastic reviews.
Jenny trained in Theatre, Performance and Dance at Roehampton University and has attained Grade 8 in musical theatre singing, which was recognised in the final of the National Voice Competition 2008. Her love for entertaining took her to the North of England as a Pontins Bluecoat where she enjoyed performing seven nights a week in a variety of roles. Currently, Jenny’s performing skills are used on a regular basis as a children’s themed party entertainer and is an experienced performing arts teacher. Her life on stage contniues, including a phenomenal performance as a soloist at the Voice In A Million concert at the 02 Arena in January 2010. “I am honored to be part of Voice in a Million and to raise awareness of such an amazing cause”
Sally Keeler
The Academy are delighted that whenever possible, Voice In A Million star Sally Keeler is able to come along to many of the sessions in Chertsey when she’s not busy with her studies and active recording schedule.
Her passion for music began at a very young age and ‘could sing before she could talk’. Sally had singing lessons during her school years, was a member of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and is currently studying at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford and with top vocal and performance coaches David and Carrie Grant.
Sally recently gave a stunning performance of one of her own song productions “Golden Child” at the London O2 Arena as part of the Voice In Million concert on 28th Jan 2010. Last year she also won Best vocalist in the Live & unsigned awards.
Sally was adopted as a young child and has been actively raising awareness for adoption and fostering with Voice In A Million, doing lots of media interviews across the UK and appearing on the ITV television show, ‘This Morning’ during the National Adoption Week campaign in November 2009.
