Charlotte Church: Maturing teen soprano calls the shots on upcoming album

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

Vocalist Charlotte Church, with four albums and an autobiography under her belt, cherishes free time spent at home with family and friends. Church is in Hawai'i for a Saturday concert appearance. Gannett News Service Charlotte Church with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra 8 p.m. Saturday Blaisdell Arena $45-$65 (discounts for students, seniors and military) 526-4400, 792-2000, honolulusymphony.com

Full of clicks, pops and moments of plain old dead air, it is, in a word, godawful.

Enter Charlotte Church. It's early evening in her hometown when the 15-year-old Welsh soprano — and famously monikered "Voice of an Angel" — picks up the long-distance line from a sleepover at a friend's house.

"Hiiiii!" says Church, her undeniably bubbly voice exuding all the playful effervescence of a teenager on summer vacation — which, at the moment, she happily happens to be. Go ahead, just ask her what she has been up to all day.

"Actually, I haven't done much," says Church, contentedly. "I've just kind of been sitting around at my friend's house. I don't go back to school until September, but I'm getting my course work ready. It's all the old boring stuff."

Fun stuff, though, in yet another summer whose weeks-away conclusion she is already dreading.

"(Summer) is only like two months here," she grouses about her school break, before jealously asking, "You have three months of summer there, don't you?"

The affirmative answer is greeted by a plaintive sigh. Only days earlier, Church returned from several weeks in Los Angeles, which included a series of sold-out concerts, recording sessions for her fourth album, and the celebrity-studded 'N Sync album and "Rush Hour 2" launches. No, the admittedly shy Church didn't dare walk up to anyone she admired but confesses, "Chris Tucker sat behind me."

Island getaway

Chatty, relaxed and prone to numerous giggle fits, Church is clearly happy to be back home. This despite the fact that her long-in-the-waiting Hawaiian vacation — only two days away at the time of our chat — includes a bit of business at the Blaisdell Arena this weekend with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra.

It's her second Hawai'i concert appearance, her first being a private performance for Ford Motor Co. executives at the Big Island's Orchid at Mauna Lani last year. Church first sang her now-signature concert staple, the poppy "Just Say Hello," in a 1999 Ford television commercial broadcast worldwide in celebration of the millennium.

"It was just four days," she says of her Big Island trip, "but it was bliss."

Seasoned performer

Charlotte Church has released three albums since her 1999 debut "Voice of an Angel" took the then 12-year-old fresh-faced Welsh schoolgirl into the upper echelons of worldwide classical music charts, and the CD collections of folks who otherwise wouldn't know from Bach.

Drawn to the sheer oddity — not to mention very real talent — of an ankle-socked and school-frocked youngster belting out semi-classical and semi-operatic music with the gusto of a pubescent Maria Callas, music buyers have snapped up Church's recordings to the tune of 8 million CDs worldwide, 5 million in the United States alone.

Church has performed for everyone from the Clintons and Pope John Paul II to queens Elizabeth and Oprah. The autobiography of her first 14 years, "Voice of an Angel: My Life (So Far)" (Warner Books, 2001) — ghostwritten by an English journalist — is at a bookstore near you.

All in all, pretty impressive for a teenager who freely admits that the circumstances that led to her singing career — performances for family, then at church socials, then in local song competitions — once competed with short-lived childhood pursuits of dancing and ice skating.

"I always loved singing, but I never dreamed of doing it professionally," Church says. "I just wanted to be a barrister." She bursts into giggles.

Classical music, she says, wasn't a choice.

"I went to singing lessons when I was 9 and a half, and my voice just fit that," Church says. "I was better with some (styles) than others," but her voice consistently shined when tackling the classic and the sacred. "It was really like, 'OK, this sounds good. Let's do this.' So I did." And besides, with a school full of teenage singers voraciously competing for a weekday afternoon slot on MTV's "Total Request Live," "I quite like being an individual."

Church has even come to accept the perpetually uptight classical cognoscenti, who have taken great pains to criticize the singer for everything from her age to the depth of her voice to her commitment to their precious art form. Well, "sort of come to accept" might be more apt.

"To be honest, people like that are not present at my lessons and don't know my technique or how I can sing," Church says. "I don't profess to be the best classical singer in the world. I know that I can't do 'O Mio Babbino Caro' as well as a 40-year-old would. I just do things my own way."

That apparently includes calling the shots on a new album title.

'Enchantment'

"It's probably going to be called 'Enchantment,'" Church says of her fourth album, scheduled for an October release. She pauses, then giggles loudly in embarrassment. "I just couldn't think of anything else."

So no "Voice of an Angel 2," huh?

"No," she says firmly of the alias that has followed her like a bad aria through three teenage years and too many growth spurts to count. "It's interesting. Everybody kept coming up with these religious titles and I'm like, 'Hello, we have sooo gone (there), people! No!'" Again, giggles.

Church ticks off a preliminary song list — half of which gets lost in long-distance limbo somewhere over Ohio — that thankfully doesn't find young Charlotte suddenly going J. Lo on longtime fans.

"It's got some Catholic songs, some arias and some show songs," Church says of the track listing, which offers no hint of her current fascination with hip-hop. Now playing in her CD player are Destiny's Child, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu and india.arie. Church doesn't miss a beat when asked who she most wants to perform with.

"Lauryn Hill," she coos, dreamily.

Still, Church swears, she'll never go all hip-hop or, for that matter, all pop.

"The new album is more popular, but I wouldn't say pop," Church says. "I can't be Christina and I can't be Britney."

Thank goodness.

Back to normal

Post Hawai'i, "I'll go back, rest a bit, then I'm off to school ... Whoopee!" shrieks Church, faking enthusiasm for the last third of her list of things to do.

At home for just "three to four months out of the year," Church cherishes her anonymity and free time.

"Once I go back home ... everything is completely normal with my family and friends," she says. "It's a completely normal life."

A quickly maturing and increasingly fashion-conscious teenager, "I like to have house parties with my mates," she says. "All the normal stuff. I'm a clothes-a-holic. Shoes are my thing."

This time around, the trip to Hawai'i was Church's call, and as such, she'll be staying longer. Ten days, to be exact, which started Wednesday and will likely include several afternoons of parasailing with her mother Maria and a couple of friends.

"How hot is it there?" she asks, politely.

Mid 80s to low 90s is the reply.

"Wow! Is it?" she squeals. "Yay! It's overcast and rainy here."

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8005.