Joanna Forbes L'Estrange

Joanna Forbes L'Estrange

Joanna Forbes L’Estrange is a British vocalist, choral composer and choir director. Born into a family of eminent professional musicians, she grew up in Surrey, singing as a chorister in her local parish church choir and studying the piano and cello. After graduating with a Master of Arts music degree from Oxford University her career began with seven years at the helm of the five-time Grammy® award-winning jazz vocal group The Swingle Singers. For twenty years she has been sharing her choral jazz expertise by coaching choirs with her popular workshop You can sing…but can you swing?!. Specialising in contemporary ‘crossover’ music, Joanna receives regular engagements to be the soloist for Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert and Mass in Blue by Will Todd (which she recorded for the Convivium record label) and to perform works by Steve Reich, John Adams, Stockhausen and Berio. Her distinctive, high soprano vocals can be heard on over 300 film soundtracks, most notably in a duet with Jarvis Cocker for The French Dispatch. She is one half of the jazz duo L’Estranges in the Night and television credits include Fleabag which featured her Andrews Sisters-inspired song You Are. The international popularity of Joanna’s choral compositions has been attributed to the composer’s belief that new music doesn’t have to be difficult to be effective. Her mission to create a body of well-crafted music which every choir can sing has been described as “an integrity of purpose which infuses every musical phrase that Forbes L’Estrange writes” (BBC Music). Most evident is her focus on melody, leading to reviews such as “a sublime blend of catchy and comforting” (Hyperion), “full of delicious ear-worms” (Gramophone) and “Forbes L’Estrange seems to have been born with catchy melodies coursing through her veins” (BBC Music). Composed to mark the coronation of King Charles III, Joanna’s anthem The mountains shall bring peace was sung by over 600 choirs across five continents and established her as one of the RSCM’s best-selling composers. This and many more of her sacred and secular pieces have been recorded by London Voices on two albums, Heaven to Earth and Winter Light, both released on the Signum record label. Her largest, most ambitious work to date is A Season to Sing, a choral re-imagining of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. In collaboration with her husband Alexander L’Estrange, she has also composed three 40-minute cantatas for their award-winning series of works for SATB choir, unison children’s choir and instrumental quintet. Joanna is an ambassador for Harmony Across Borders, a new choir competition which champions music by female composers. She founded and for five years directed the Cambridge-based, women’s choir AQUILA and has composed many songs for upper voice choirs in support of gender equality, including A Woman (Wearing Bloomers) on a Wheel, made into a film by the National Youth Girls’ Choir. With her charity single Twenty-first-century Woman Joanna made history by organising and conducting the first all-female recording session ever to have taken place at London’s iconic Abbey Road Studios.