Cleo Laine will be performing on Saturday, April 16th as the headliner act in the Art of Song festival. http://www.leicestersquaretheatre.com/index.php?pg=1209. Tickets are £30 but if you can get them for £20 when you enter the code 'artofsong' when booking through the Leicester Square Theatre box office.
Cleo played last November at the Barbican.
Leicester Square Theatre
6 Leicester Place
London WC2H 7BX
This concert provides a rare opportunity to see the legendary DAME CLEO LAINE appearing in an intimate theatre setting. In this very special concert, she will perform songs from her classic 1964 album 'Shakespeare And All That Jazz' (given a 5-star review in Downbeat magazine) featuring the bard's verses set in jazz settings by her late husband, Sir john Dankworth.
CLEO LAINE is celebrated worldwide as a singer, famous for her unique voice with its extraordinary subtlety of colour and range. As well as jazz, she has performed opera, lieder, and popular musicals and is also a serious actress
Cleo grew up in Southall, a tomboy with unruly hair, whose English mother and Jamaican father were constantly on the move, trying to make ends meet. Though theirs was a difficult marriage and money was short, they enriched her life with their infectious enthusiasm, fun and love of music. From an early age Cleo knew she wanted to sing, and after working as an apprentice hairdresser and milliner, in a library and pawn shop, she finally made her break when she auditioned for John Dankworth in Soho in the early 1950's.
After she and John married, Cleo forged a career on her own in a wide range of stage performances, from straight plays and satire to musicals including 'Valmouth' and 'Showboat,' Kurt Weill's 'Seven Deadly Sins' and Sondheim's 'Into the Woods' and also collaborated with John Dankworth in works such as 'Lysistrata' and jazz performances. Cleo has won a Tony Award for her Broadway performances and Grammy Awards for her jazz recordings.
Cleo and John toured the world performing sold out concerts in America and Australia in venues ranging from the Carnegie Hall and Royal Albert Hall to the celebrated Birdland Jazz Club in New York City, meeting and collaborating with the giants of jazz including Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme and Dudley Moore.
Cleo continues to perform worldwide and divides her time between her homes in England and California. With her late husband, Sir John Dankworth, a composer, arranger and jazz instrumentalist, they pioneered the Wavendon Music Centre, which aims to provide music education to children from all backgrounds with that same verve Cleo's parents passed on to her.
