Page 415 - Guildhall Coverage Book 2020-21

"The voice is older, it needs to be looked after. Its bigger, it’s stronger so it needs
cultivating. I’m much more aware of the need for constant MOTs, just not every year,
but as often as I can get it."

Now that he is teaching - Lemalu is a Professor of Voice at Guildhall School of Music
& Drama - he is aware those sessions also help make him a better singer.

"It’s what I like about the classes as they always seem to hold me accountable. I
can’t tell all these kids to do something and then me not do it."

As a Grammy-award winning artist, Lemalu has performed on the world’s top opera
stages and with some of the world’s big names but it is the things that go wrong that
make performances stick in his mind.

"They’re genuinely hilarious to me."

Like the time - "true story" - when Lemalu in a performance of Don
Giovanni accidentally pushed his luggage trolley too far across the stage and it
dropped into the orchestra pit.

"Thankfully the brass section was not needed for my aria, so they’d left or they would
have got squashed by this big luggage trolley. They had to stop the performance. I’m
feeling really special for all the wrong reasons now and then I had to repeat the aria.

"That is live performance. Now all the other performances went wonderfully but I only
remember the one where I nearly squashed someone in an orchestra pit."
He plans to share some of those stories and anecdotes behind the songs he sings
with the audience at the concert such as the times he sung one for royalty or the
song he sung for Sir Peter Blake after winning the America’s Cup.

Getting back on to the Dunedin Town Hall stage is "really comfortable" as he knows
his way around.

"When I go out on that stage I feel very much at home. It’s the most familiar of any
house in the world because I grew up here. I sung in the secondary school music
festivals there, played violin in the orchestra, sung in the capping sextet, my first time
with the Dunedin Symphony here."

It was where he chose to hold his benefit concert in 2017 to encourage young
performers.

"There is a lot of love for what Dunedin has created."

Alongside the concerts and rehearsals they require, he is also holding masterclasses
around the country, all helped by a generous sponsorship from Lexus whom he dealt
with as a Lexus Songquest winner years ago.

"I really want to support young singers. It might sound cheesy but there is enough
room for all of us. It’s exciting to see them start their journey and its an extension of
what I do in London."

TO SEE

An Audience with Jonathan Lemalu
Dunedin Town Hall
Sunday at 2pm