Tangerine Dreams

Even with the safety net of a career in engineering, Laura Hudson took the leap to pursue what was true to her heart - singing. Quietly (actually, not that quietly…) she worked her way up and then a little thing called Covid-19 stopped things in their tracks. She talks to us about choices and the passion that drives her.

What are your days like now?

My days are like they used to be when I first decided to be a singer. They have got a nice routine, whereas it was panicked at the start of the lockdown. It's now into that 'start of career' feel that I used to have fifteen years ago, (obviously that little bit later in life) in as much as I've done a lot of stuff and I'm going through the whole "I don't think I'll ever sing again" anxiety. Fifteen years ago, I’d apply for all the things and do this, that and the other. It's that kind of anxiety. But in the other hand, now I've made my mind up about where I'm going to be living and everything, in the last few weeks it's become more about "Ooh...think about all the exciting projects I can do without having to rely on the established industry" - now that's exciting.

Why the change from engineer to singing?

I chose engineering because I come from a background and culture where singing or any form of the arts weren't a career choice. It was something you did for fun. I went into Engineering because I was good at it. It's chemical engineering - it's lots of chemistry and maths and stuff and I loved it. But I was always singing on the side and in the end, I was leaving for work early in the morning, doing a full day, then going to rehearsals after work and getting home at about 11pm. Next morning up at 5.30am and it started again. 5 days a week. I did get some nastiness - you know what this industry is like - someone saying something derogatory about people that hadn't studied full time not being as good as people who studied when they could.

I went for an advice audition at the Royal Northern College of Music and I quote "Bloody hell, your voice is big, it could be bigger than Jane Eaglen's"...I knew what Jane Eaglen looked like and all I heard was "You could be bigger than Jane Eaglen…”!
I did the audition, got in and thought ," Sod it, I'm  going to give it a go" . So I did. I went back into engineering after finishing my studies because I ran out of money and once I’d built up the savings again, I left engineering again (early retirement - I was in my mid-thirties!)

What difference did it make, knowing you had a security blanket?

When I started pursuing it, because I was ten years behind everyone else, I couldn't do things like Young Artist Programmes. I was massively excluded from a lot of stuff like that, so I felt that I was fighting losing battle and I also didn't have the support, the home support. I was self-financed. I felt like I was more manic than some others that might have been doing it. I felt that I was fighting against time and the geography of where I was living at that time. I was living on Merseyside and very much felt that I had to be in the South East to get anywhere, to form those networks, or move to Germany and I couldn't afford to do that. It did feel a bit manic and it's only after  moving to London and being in London for five years that I'd made those networks and contacts. Maybe it wasn't THAT necessary.

What is it that made you feel “I don’t really need to be here?”

It's  actually been lockdown that's made me realize it. The world has changed. You felt like you had to be here to be working with people, to keep those networks going whereas we were forcibly isolated from each other in lockdown. That's  when you realized you didn't need to be living in each other's pockets and it was okay.

I'd already decided that London was killing me. About 18 months ago I was run over - that tipped me over. I'd already decided that London was too hard a place to live and get by as a singer, so this lockdown made me realize the world's going to change and you didn't need to be in London.

Not being “in each other’s pockets” – has this spurred creativity that you might have put aside?  Do you have free reign, now?

So I was working at least 6 days a week, ridiculously long hours just to pay the rent, whereas being free of that gives me time to do creative things and to think about creating your own projects. There's also the fact that we're seeing other people doing stuff which has forced ideas in my brain. Example - we take six weeks to rehearse. The first week talking about character and development , we could do that on zoom instead. That's a week less hiring of rehearsal space, rent. It's little things like this that can really move forward with how we create work together, communicate. We’ve learnt to do this during lockdown, and we can use that to create more stuff and get it out there into different parts of the country, not just into the South East.

“I might never sing again”?

You're kind of like - okay, what's going to happen next? Will they want me when things start up again? You're always aware that every year another 100 singers come from the conservatoires and they're really good and have just as much right to a chance as everybody else. You’re aware that it's a dwindling market - I'm on the edges of it already. If it's all gone quiet for however many months, does that mean I'm not coming back into the market?

It's the professional part. I'm never going to sing the sort of stuff I used to sing. We saw, with the NHS Thursday clapping, that we would sing. I know I'll be doing that sort of singing. I'll probably end up singing in old folks homes and community singing will carry on but the big rep I used to do - will there ever be a chance for me to sing that sort of Verdi and Wagner repertoire again? From a career point of view, before lockdown had happened, I didn't know whether that would happen again but then lockdown did happen. Are we ever going to be able to afford to do it, to want to do it? I don't know.

Why singing?

Singing made me feel better than who I felt I was when I wasn't singing. It's all to do with acceptance of who you are and where you fit in humanity. I was looking at some pictures that a friend shared on Facebook and it's one of the earliest photos you'll ever see of me in a production. I’m dressed up as a tangerine! I'm one of the youngest kids in that photo but I take up the most space. That's the thing, I loved doing theatre and music theatre but was always told I was too big and there I was, in the world of opera. Not only was I not too big, but they really, really liked the fact I was a noisy bugger! And I made noises that made people very excited and noises that made me tingle. It was everything. Suddenly I had a place and that's something you can't let go of, I know in my heart of hearts I'll  always be noisy.

What happens if you can’t sing anymore?  What happens to that sense of place?

That's the thing that makes you very, very upset when you think about it.  Where do I fit?  Especially when I've heard about where singers fit in all of this. All dramatic voices said "We'll never sing again". No, it means you don't sing with your full dynamic range or you don't sing beyond sixty percent. It's not about the decibel level, it's about their dynamic range. I think I will sing, no matter where I am in the world. If you put me at the South Pole, I'm sure I'll find a flock of penguins somewhere. I've had little fantasies of singing to plants if I have to. Singing has been with me in every career I've tried to follow. It's part of me - it is me - in the same way I've got brown eyes and dodgy red hair.

Moving forward, there’s a new way to make things work for me, doing more recitals and plotting more programmes, sorting that out in a part of the world where you're not fighting to get a performance slot in a church in the City of London where there's  a long waiting list. You know, things like that. Sorting out your own performance projects, all of that sort of stuff, that's the world I'm going to have to create for myself. Lockdown has kind of recharged my batteries enough to be able to face going out there and doing it again. That's a positive out of lockdown for me.

We’ll put the beginning at the end – who are you?

I'm a noisy bugger. I knit and I talk to my cat, Zorro. How do I say who I am? There are twenty million parts of me: Laura the ex-engineer, Laura the ex-rugby player, Laura the ex-bouncer, Laura the usher, the dramatic soprano, the history buff. There are twenty million different parts you can use, but noisy bugger's the easiest, isn't it?

Zorro.