School of Music

Graduate Kirsty's debut album due

Ex-Leeds pop student vocalist forms part of Nick Drake TV homage

Singer and songwriter Kirsty Almeida, a 2000 graduate of Leeds' Popular Music Studies BA, will see her debut album released by Decca Records this autumn.

Almeida who was a student at Bretton Hall prior to its merger with Leeds University in 2001, has been an active performer and composer, a vocalist with the Latin band La Gran Descarga and gradually making her solo mark before Decca signed her last year.

Pale Blue Green, produced by Youth, gathers a body of new songs that reflect both Almeida's lyrical and musical inventiveness but also draw attention to the bohemian theatricality of her work. Her stage style is as much about the sounds as the visual effect, a relic perhaps of an early training in the visual arts.

Manchester-based, Almeida has also made her mark in a recent television tribute to the legendary English singer-songwriter Nick Drake. She joined Teddy Thompson, Danny Thompson and Green Gartside for a live concert commemorating Drake's output. The performance, at the Barbican, was screened on BBC4 in April.

 

Date Published: 08 June 2010
Keywords: Kirsty Almeida, Pale Blue Green, Nick Drake