Summer has an album out and the beauty goes far beyond
her good looks, it is a sound that travels into your ears and
builds a nest in your mind...peaceful and powerful.  This is
a nice showcase of her talents in several different song styles.  I will wait for her to come to Chicago and until then I have the album to keep me company.  The album has some fine selections from varied artists and arrangers..you will be delighted when you place the cd in your player.

Of Hits From Sting & The Gipsy Kings And Classic Arias (New York, NY, June 24, 2003) - The luminous English singer Summer - a classically trained soprano whose repertoire embraces everything from Sting to Vivaldi - makes her Odyssey label debut with a self-titled recording of classical and pop favorites. The acclaimed operatic tenor Marcelo Alvarez and some of the most renowned instrumentalists in pop music join Summer for the recording, produced by Nick Patrick and arranged by Nick Ingman, with Ingman conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Summer will be released this fall.

"Her name says it all - she's bright, blonde and beautiful, with the talent and determination to take the music world by storm," Classic FM Magazine wrote of the UK release of Summer. The album immediately shot to the top five of the UK's Classical charts after its April release, where it has remained for weeks. Noting that Summer has been dubbed "the Norah Jones of classical music," London's Daily Express hailed the album as "very chilled out in a classical way."

Summer features the singer in twelve tracks that include hits by Sting ("Fragile") and The Gipsy Kings ("Palabra de Honor"), and the new romantic ballad "Tutta la Vita," with a guest vocal by tenor Marcelo Alvarez.

The recording also features distinctive new arrangements of the international hit "Nella Fantasia," based on a melody from Ennio Morricone's score for the film The Mission; "He Was Beautiful," based on the Stanley Myers' "Cavatina" from the film The Deer Hunter, the "Song of the Moon" from Antonin Dvorak's opera  Rusalka; "Aranjuez me pensee," adapted from the slow movement of Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez; "Mal di Luna," a new song based on Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata; Gabriel Faure's "Cantique de Jean Racine"; Richard Strauss's "Morgen"; the aria "Sposa son disprezzata" from Antonio Vivaldi's opera Ottone in Villa; and the "Berceuse" from Benjamin Godard's opera Jocelyn.

Joining Summer on the recording are a host of top instrumentalists, including pianist Simon Mulligan; bassist Pino Palladino (who has worked with Celine Dion, Peter Gabriel and Eric Clapton); keyboard player Richard Cottle (Mick Jagger, Manic Street Preachers, Vanessa-Mae); and guitarist Dominic Miller (Sting).

Summer will be featured on Sony Classical's Web site at www.sonyclassical.com.

After being awarded a first class honors degree from Trinity College of Music (where she also received several individual prizes, including the prestigious Countess of Munster and Anne Driver awards). Summer went on to study as a post graduate at The Royal College of Music. She left last year with a distinction and a determination to bring her energy, enthusiasm and eclectic tastes to the attention of the record-buying public.

"I  just want people to experience, enjoy and share some of the amazing and varied music that I do" she says. "I am classically trained but love everything from purely classical pieces to jazz, world music and the best of
pop. I do not look to any particular genre, country or century to find beauty and inspiration. I love music and singing and my aim is to try my best, to inspire the audience to discover and enjoy something unique."

Summer grew up in East Sussex and Oxfordshire, the only child of progressive parents who encouraged their daughter to be as independent and individual as she could from an early age. At the age of ten she left home to live on the Caribbean island of Martinique with a family she had never met before for the express purpose of learning French.

"It was a wonderful experience" she recalls. "I went home after two months fluent in the language and having been totally immersed in a completely different culture." The trip left her with a love of travel (she now speaks five languages) and this combined perfectly with her next passion - music.

Music was not so much a love affair for Summer, but a journey. She started entering small competitions that grew into bigger ones, sometimes winning, sometimes not. This just made her more determined to keep on
working, to keep on improving.

By the time she was sixteen. Summer had decided that music was going to be her life. When she won the place at Trinity she began a four-year course training as an opera singer. "My initial idea was to join an opera
company" she explains, but things took a different turn.

Just as world music clubs such as the Buddha Bar in Paris and Memo's in London began to spearhead a new international trend, Summer realized she might be able to make a record that brought together the best, of
everything she loved. Summer is equally at home giving a classical recital in traditional surroundings or singing in a club with a couple of young non-classical musicians and wanted to make music that would reflect
this diversity.

"I wanted to do something different. Seek out pieces from around the world and blend them into a new mix," she says. "Songs I particularly love on the album include a Spanish song, 'Palabra De Honor,' which has also
been sung by The Gipsy Kings. 'Concierto de Aranjuez' is an amazing piece of music from the 1930s. There is an absolutely exquisite French lullaby by the composer Godard and a stunning Czech piece,
'Song To The Moon' by the late composer Dvorak. As a contrast I also do a cover of Sting's song, 'Fragile' which I think is an outstanding piece."
Summer has created a brilliant and equally fascinating album. With Nick Patrick producing and Nick Ingman writing extraordinary arrangements for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.