Soprano Eve comes home
IT’S lucky that music is the universal language as it has taken Dundalk born opera singer Eve Bourton around the world.
Eve, who spent her childhood in Faughart before her family emigrated to New Zealand, has found that music opens doors as well as hearts and is back where it all started, presenting her show in The Spirit Store on Thursday April 20.
She went to school in Scoil Eoin Baiste and remembers listening to her grandfather Benny Henry’s record collection after school. ‘He had a great collection of classical music like Pavarotti and Maria Callas as well as Irish singers such as John McCormack.’
‘ There were lots of singers in the family, particularly the Bourtons, so there would also be singing at family events like weddings,’ she recalls.
Her parents Gerard and Celine moved Eve and her two siblings to New Zealand’s north island in 1989 and Eve continued her education there.
‘My Dad was into country and Irish music so when I got into opera it was a bit like ‘where did that come from?,’ she says.
A common thread between the diverse genres, however, is their focus on story-telling, something that Eve loves and weaves into her performances.
Although she sang at High School and has a degree in music and linguists, winning scholarships from the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation, the Sir Donald McIntyre Trust and the Laura Coon Foundation at the University of Waikato, she had a number of jobs before making singing her career.
‘It was when I got involved with amateur musical societies and landed the role of Stella in a Street Car Named Desire that I met with a friend from music school,’ she recalls. ‘She was going to do a Masters in Prague and asked me I wasn’t I singing on the stage.’
After her father passed away in 2010, Eve drew courage and inspiration from his advice that life is short and do live the dream.
‘I brought a CD I had recorded and went to Italy where I got into a summer school and it was there I met my Maestro who has taken my on this journey of singing,’
Working with Maestro William Matteuzzi in Bologna, she blossomed under his guidance and was a semi-finalist in the Elizabeth Connell Competition for dramatic soprano voice and runner up in Corso Musicale - Citta di Filadelfia, Calabria.
On finishing her Bel Canto studies, she landed a job on a luxury cruise liner which earned her many international fans and saw her broadening her repertoire. ‘I wasn’t just singing opera but also had to do backing vocals for a ‘fifties go-go girl band, so it was totally mad!’
She toured South Africa accompanied by a jazz pianist and has just spent two months in Toronto, Canada.
Her experiences of working with different genres of music has inspired her to launch her own company Simply Eve and develop her one woman cabaret show which she takes to The Spirit Store this Thursday night.
Entitled ‘From Louth to Hobbiton and Back with stops in between’, it promises to be a lively night of song and stories.
Eve believes passionately in the power of music and singing in particular. ‘ The human voice is the only instrument that has words.’
‘I truly believe that music is the one international language which can overcome all human differences. It is the food and medicine of the soul.’
‘I love theatre and entertaining and trying to communicate the magical moments in song,’ she says.
Eve is now hoping to base her career out of Ireland, saying that while she loves New Zealand dearly, it is very far away from the international music scene.
She is brimming with ideas for future shows, talking enthusiastically about the fitness benefits of making pasta, learning Italian and singing.
‘I’m here, figuring it out and it’s great.’
She hopes to see lots of Dundalk music fans for her show in The Spirit Store which sees her joined by pianist Jillian Saunders for what promises to be a most entertaining night of music, song and stories. The show starts at 8p.m. and tickets are €15.