I'd like to say a few things in tribute to the brilliant musical director & vocal coach Kate Young, who died far too young last week. Even fellow musical theatre folk may not know what a trail-blazing talent she was, so here's my story of Kate (thread)/1
I first met Kate at a rehearsal for Wayne Sleep's 1983 touring dance show DASH, for which I was composer. What struck me first about her (apart from the poetic lilt of her warm, Edinburgh accent) was the impeccable care she was taking playing piano for dance rehearsals /2
(believe me, & I mean no disrespect to lovely dancers & choreographers but playing piano for dance sessions isn't called REPETITEUR for nothing and many repetiteurs switch to auto-pilot at the keys. Kate never did. Her playing was always immaculate)/3
We hit it off immediately & had long, ranty discussions about how we wanted to change musical theatre, like young people do. We had specific aims to do with the way singing was taught & shaped for the stage. /4
We wanted the singing to be much more text & meaning-focused, for actors to have the confidence to sing as well as trained singers & for the sound to be more nuanced, more plural in style & less belty & samey (tbh not sure we won that battle..) /5