ESCALA, the gorgeous electric string quartet who caused a sensation in the final of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent 2008, finally unleash their astonishing, Trevor Horn produced debut album on the 25th May. Fusing contemporary sounds with classical instruments, ESCALA boast the freshest and most innovative sound of the year and are destined to take the international charts by storm.
The quartet comprises four sophisticated, beautiful and intelligent girls in their twenties. These talented, dedicated and disciplined musicians studied at London’s most prestigious music colleges, becoming highly trained, professional classical performers. The four girls became close friends after being recruited as part of a large string section for a UK arena tour by boyband McFly, and decided to work together to create a new musical phenomenon. After entering Britain’s Got Talent 2008, performing in front of 14 million viewers on the show’s final, the band were signed by Simon Cowell to company, Syco Entertainment.
ESCALA are violinists Victoria Lyon, aged 25, and Izzy Johnston, 25. Chantal Leverton, a viola player aged 25 and cellist Tasya Hodges, 26 complete the line up. The ladies are deadly serious about their music, playing both acoustic and electric instruments and bringing stylish high-octane showmanship to their performances. With their unique formula of fun and integrity, the girls believe their approach will encourage many (in particular the young) to overcome prejudices about classical instruments.
A year ago, ESCALA were performing at private functions, among them a wrap party for X Factor and the GQ party at the Cannes film festival. Today, the quartet have been choosen to lead BSkyB’s television promotional campaign for the new Premiership football season (in succession to bands such as Simple Minds, Queen and Oasis) and the band’s first album will make them household names.
Simon Cowell was bowled over by ESCALA the moment he first heard the girls in the semi-finals of Britain’s Got Talent. He says: “They are completely original and they have got it all; remarkable dedication and training, looks, intelligence, the right attitude to make it big and music that has wide appeal. With their amazing stage presence as well, they are a very rare talent and I believe there will be a huge interest in them, particularly in America.”
Victoria Lyon is the great-great-grand-daughter of the renowned 19th century opera singer, Jenny Lind, known as “The Swedish Nightingale”. With her five siblings, who were also music scholars, she formed a family sextet that would busk in the streets, instead of taking summer jobs. She later attended the Royal College of Music and joined the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as its youngest player.
Izzy Johnston, who gained a full scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, is from an extremely musical family. Her parents run a music school, her brother Guy is a cellist, Magnus a violinist and Rupert a Horn player who unfortunately was left severely brain damaged after a car accident in 1997. Her family continues to raise money for Rupert’s charity BIRT. Izzy performed an arrangement of the four seasons with Magnus at the Royal Albert Hall prom in 2005 and was a guest soloist with Michael Ball at his prom in 2007.
Tasya Hodges, who speaks four languages, was born in England but is half Croatian. Passionate about music from an early age, she started playing Cello while living in Croatia. However, her life was interrupted by war in the county and she and her family were forced to leave, relocating to Brussels for two years until Tasya won a scholarship to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey, England. Later came four years at Guildhall where she performed with the London Symphony Orchestra for three months.
Chantal Leverton, who took up music at seven, was a member of the prestigious National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, before she won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. Aged 13, Chantal won The Henry Wood prize for most promising string player from the Trinity College of Music. Chantal also played at the Wigmore Hall aged 14 in a masterclass with the Vienna piano trio.
ESCALA’s debut album is to feature the girls’ wide-ranging love of contemporary music. The tracks will include the Chi Mai theme by Ennio Morricone, Craig Armstrong’s haunting Finding Beauty, Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir, Children, by the Swiss Italian DJ Robert Miles, Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars, Live and Let Die by Wings and Escala’s signature tune, Palladio.
The album will be produced by the Grammy Award-winning British musician Trevor Horn who has produced for Cher, Seal, Paul McCartney, Pet Shop Boys, Charlotte Church, Mike Oldfield and many others.
Perhaps Izzy Johnston sums up the quartet best. “We all absolutely love performing and to do it with your closest friends is just the best thing you could imagine. I can only say that this feels like it was meant to be.”
SPORTY and clever, Chantal Leverton, who won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, is passionate that Escala should become role models to help break down prejudices among the young about classical instruments.
“It is so important to show children that it can be cool to play them.
It does work because after the finals of Britain’s Got Talent, I went back to the school where I taught and so many girls and boys who had seen us on television came up said how they really wanted to learn viola and would I teach them.”
Chantal was seven when she was introduced to music. “My mother took me to a music shop and asked what instrument I would like to play. I picked up a violin because I’d heard them in The Proms which were on at the time and I’ve never looked back.”
Brought up in north London, the daughter of a lawyer, she was educated at King Alfred’s, a progressive independent school in Hampstead. She took music seriously – at the age of 12 she started attending the junior department of Trinity College of Music.
When she was 16, a teacher encouraged her to switch to the viola and it was the following year that the importance of music hit her.
“I auditioned for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and it was the first time I realised what I had got myself into. There were 250 young musicians in the hall who knew each other from the previous year and were taking it very seriously. I decided to go with it but it was sink or swim time.”
She spent two years with the orchestra, making appearances at the Barbican Centre and the Royal Festival Hall, before her scholarship to the Royal Academy. And then, two years into the course, she had to make a tough decision when she was invited to join a new manufactured crossover band, Wild. Fatefully, she decided to go, Wild made a recording but didn’t last long. “I had decided that if you get any opportunity in this business, you take it. You can go back to college later.”
Chantal was hired to join a string quartet to back the boy band McFly on a UK tour. The other members were Izzy, Tas and Victoria. The foursome got on so well that when the tour was over they decided to stick together. Escala was born.
“I value the chemistry and friendship between us so much. It is amazing to perform with my best friends and to experience this journey with them.”
After Escala reached the final of Britain’s Got Talent and won a contract with Sony BMG, she says: “We’re incredibly happy. Not to sound arrogant, but I feel we deserve it as a group. We have put in so much discipline and dedication and I am so glad that we have been recognised.”
Highly educated both musically and academically, Tasya Hodges, is another who says that she has found her true vocation with Escala.
“I am having fun every day with my best friends making music which I love and enjoy. I absolutely couldn’t be happier.”
Her talents saw her into three of the most prestigious education establishments in the country – the Yehudi Menuhin School for musically gifted children, the highly prestigious St Paul’s Girls’ School and then a four year degree at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
But like many gifted young musicians, she also liked contemporary music, didn’t want to join an orchestra and was uncertain about becoming a soloist. She compares Escala to a classical chamber group, only playing a different style of music and combining that with high-octane performances.
Her background is exotic. Her mother is Croatian, her father, English.
After spending a few years in Croatia where she started playing the cello, her life was interrupted by war and the family moved to Brussels settling there for two years. However, Tasya’s cello playing suffered and she was sent to board at the Yehudi Menuhin School where she received a scholarship. In her years there, she practiced hard and had the opportunity to perform in famous venues such as The Royal Festival Hall and the Purcell Room.
She remembers the great maestro Yehudi Menuhin well: “His one thing with me was that he would always say that I was terribly impatient and wanted to get things perfect immediately.
“He would say ‘relax and enjoy the process of learning’.”
At Guildhall, she won the London Symphony Orchestra String Scheme Award and played with the orchestra, based at the Barbican Centre, for three months.
After her degree, she spent a year in Brazil studying with cellist Gustavo Tavares. Tasya had to learn her fourth language, Portuguese.
She has a particular interest in chamber music and has been a member of the Covent Garden Soloists Ensemble and the Pharos Soloists Ensemble, led by Levon Chilingirian.
Her love of contemporary music developed at the Guildhall, particularly when she joined the Heritage Orchestra performing at Jazz festivals in Montreaux and London, recording their album of 2006 in Abbey Road.
After Guildhall, Tasya was hired to play as part of the McFly tour, where she met the other Escala girls in the orchestra. In addition to this, she has been a part of the Take That tour 2007 and played in recording sessions for bands such as The Streets and The Arctic Monkeys.
Although her classical career has taken a turn she couldn’t be happier – it has fused her love of contemporary music, the cello and performing.
SELF-confident, caring and educated in a truly extraordinary musical family. Izzy aims to find the right balance for her career – where she can blend her passions for acting, dancing and music. She has found this blend in eScala.
Izzie’s intensive classical training began at Chethams’ School, Manchester (one of the country’s specialist music schools). Here she had violin lessons and the very best in musical education. From Chethams, she moved to the Royal Academy of Music in London.
“I didn’t want to become a classical musician but, without being classically trained, there is no way that I can stand on a stage and do what I do”.
From birth, music was everywhere in her family. Her father is a clarinettist and her mother plays the bassoon. Her parents run a music school in Harpenden (Harpenden Musicale), where Izzy has taught the violin on a regular basis. Izzy’s three brothers are all musicians – Magnus 28 (violin) is a BBC New Generation Artist, Guy 26 (cello) was BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2000 and Rupert 30 was a brilliant French horn player until, sadly, he was involved in a near fatal car accident and is now living in a brain injury rehabilitation unit in Aylesbury (Kent House).
“Rupert is my inspiration. Despite his brain injury, he can still play the French horn. Through his own determination, he has survived.”
Determined to be a professional musician like the rest of her family, Izzy left the Royal Academy of Music to join a classical crossover band, Wild, where she first met another eScala member, Chantal. Together they played worldwide during their two year contract with EMI. This is where, as Izzy put it, “we learnt the business”.
As Izzy’s reputation grew, she performed in many concerts. Highlights include appearances as guest soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in the ‘Four Seasons’, and also with the BBC Concert Orchestra in Michael Ball’s BBC Promenade Concert last year.
“I can not imagine life without my music making. What has been wonderful about this whole adventure with eScala is that it has been a natural coming together of four musicians who have followed musical paths very similar to my own. We are such close friends, and I just love performing with them. When I am on stage, I am at home.”
High-achieving, musically nurtured almost from the cradle and a descendant of one of the greatest opera stars the world has ever known, Victoria Lyon dares anyone to suggest that Escala’s success is based on glamour.
“I don’t think anyone will ever know how much dedication and sacrifice has gone into what we do. People think that we might be doing well because we’re four young girls.”
Victoria is one of six children born to a family – her father works in marketing - that lived in the West Country. All played string instruments from an early age and all won scholarships to music schools.
The Lyon siblings comprised three violinists, two cellists and a viola player. They would frequently play together as a sextet, giving small concerts in country churches or at music festivals.
Victoria was first a music scholar at Salisbury Cathedral School and then at Wells Cathedral School. She also joined the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain before going to the Royal College of Music, where she was leader of the symphony orchestra. She left after five years - which included a two-year spell as an extra with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra - with a postgraduate diploma.
The siblings are not the only musical ones in the family. Victoria’s great-great grandmother was Jenny Lind, the sensational 19th century Swedish soprano – as much of a star then as Maria Callas was to be in the 20th century. Known as ‘The Swedish Nightingale’. Lind settled in Britain and is commemorated in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey.
After the RCM, Victoria, then 23, joined the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as its youngest player but her freelance work led to Escala and she found the competing demands of both too much.
“I loved the Royal Philharmonic and made great friends there. It was a very good experience for me and it helped my playing as a whole. It was difficult to leave but the other members were very supportive and said that at my age I couldn’t turn down a chance like Escala.
“I don’t listen to classical music much – I prefer contemporary music and I’m listening to lots of things at the moment from Duffy and Amy Winehouse to The Eagles – but I do love performing both classical and modern. It’s always a bit difficult to juggle the two but I am so glad that I can do both.”
