Joanna Forbes L'Estrange

Joanna Forbes L'Estrange

Joanna Forbes L’Estrange (b.1971) is a British singer, songwriter, composer and choral leader who receives engagements throughout the world. Born into a family of eminent professional musicians, she studied cello and piano growing up and it was only once she was studying for her Music degree at Oxford University that she discovered her passion for singing. She met Antony Pitts and several other members of Tonus Peregrinus during this time and has been an active member of the group ever since. Joanna's career began with seven years as Soprano and Musical Director of the five-time Grammy® award-winning a cappella group The Swingles, leading concerts on the world’s most iconic stages, directing and producing six albums and writing many arrangements. As a performer, Joanna specialises in contemporary music requiring vocalists to be on close-mic, particularly works by Berio, Stockhausen, Steve Reich and John Adams. She has appeared as a soloist at the Proms, Edinburgh International Festival, Glastonbury and the O2 and in New York’s Carnegie Hall. Her stylistic versatility and three-octave vocal range has made her hugely in demand as the soprano soloist for Will Todd’s Mass in Blue which she has recorded for the Convivium label. With orchestras all over the world, she has performed Berio’s orchestral masterpiece Sinfonia over 60 times (and is still the only singer to have performed all four female vocal lines!) At Abbey Road Studios in London, Joanna has been recording soundtracks for video games and Hollywood films for over 20 years and her discography comprises choral CDs with Tonus Peregrinus and with the award-winning chamber choir Tenebrae, jazz albums with her duo L’Estranges in the Night, a cappella albums and recordings of contemporary orchestral works. Joanna composes choral music (published by Faber Music and RSCM), songs and television production music; her song You are featured in the hit TV series Fleabag. She has become the go-to composer for songs about women’s liberation, making history in 2018 with her charity single Twenty-first-century Woman by organising and conducting the first ever all-female recording session at Abbey Road Studios. Joanna has composed songs for The King’s Singers and The Military Wives Choirs; her song A woman (wearing bloomers) on a wheel has been made into a vintage-style film by the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain. Joanna is founder and artistic director of AQUILA, the all-female vocal group based at St John’s College, Cambridge, and was a judge on the Sky TV series Sing: Ultimate A Cappella. With her choral jazz workshop, ‘You can sing…but can you swing?!’, she has coached hundreds of choirs, both amateur and professional, in the art of singing non-classical styles of music. She is a guest conductor of the NYCGB and of the Self-isolation Choir.