Video: Carly Paoli performing some of the songs off her new album (Credit: Carly Paoli)
An internationally-renowned classical singer who has previously sung for Pope Francis has announced a Nottingham date on her UK tour.
Carly Paoli, 28, born and raised in Mansfield, will tour the country with Collabro from October through to December later this year.
She will perform at the Royal Concert Hall on November 21.
Carly recently won the Premio Barocco on May 27, a highly prestigious Italian award that celebrates achievements in arts and culture previously won by Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli and Dame Helen Mirren.
She also performed for the Pope Francis as part of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy last year, a Roman Catholic period of prayer, and her debut album Singing My Dreams comes out later this month on June 30.
Jake Brigstock spoke to Carly about winning the Premio Barocco, performing for the Pope and a surprise she received just before the interview…
“I had a very nice surprise this morning when DHL delivered a huge box to me – it had a load of copies of my debut album in!
It was a special moment as a lot of hard work has gone into it.
I’ve called it Singing My Dreams because it’s sort of what I think I have done as it’s all I wanted to do since I was seven-years-old – sing and perform on stage.
Because of that, I know all of the tracks inside out and I just hope that everyone likes them because they received a good reception when I performed them.
I’ve performed all of the tracks a few times but it’s different when you take the CD out of the case – it’s really fulfilling.
It’s quite a special record as there are some tracks I performed on there for Pope Francis at the Roman Forum last year.
Two of the tracks on there I wrote and performed just for the Jubilee year.
Pope Francis brought the Jubilee year forward and I did some really special work with the Vatican for different charities and refugee centres.
The idea of it was to bring pilgrims to the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.
It was brought forward because of what happened in 2016 – it was a very emotional time in the Roman Forum and it has never been used as a music venue before.
I performed there with Bocelli and Elaine Paige and it was certainly a memorable occasion, especially as it was my best night ever, it was a real highlight.
Video: Carly performing with Andrea Bocelli at The O2 Arena (Credit: Carly Paoli)
I’ve previously performed at the O2 Arena with Andrea Bocelli and that was the biggest live audience I have ever had.
When you walk out onto that platform, all you see is just a crowd of people when you look around.
Bocelli has also won the Premio Barocco and with my mum being Italian, to win the prestigious Italian arts and culture award was amazing.
It’s always special to receive an award – I got it for the work I had been doing for the Italian and culture of music.
I spent the whole summer working around Italy last year and I was invited and asked if I was available to receive the award this year.
They saw the work I had done the year before and wanted to honour it.
I’m coming to Nottingham on November 21 with Collabro as part of the 29 date tour we have and we’ll be going around seeing a lot of theatres in Britain.
I just love playing music and can’t wait to play with some fabulous singers.”
