Vocal Performance Academy

Catherine Françoise is the founder and creative director of Vocal Performance Academy.

Locally based Professional Singer & Actress Catherine trained at Guildford Conservatoire in Dance, and Trinity College of Music, London as a Singer & Pianist where she won many competitions & awards.

Her extensive professional career spans Opera, Operetta, Recital & Concert throughout the UK & Europe and a wide range of West End & Repertory Music Theatre including roles in shows including The Phantom Of The Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, Call Me Madam & The Sound Of Music.

For the past 12 years she has also taught at some of the UK’s most prestigious training academies including London’s Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, Elmhurst Ballet School as Head of Singing, Guildford Conservatoire & Central School of Speech & Drama, alongside local schools and her own busy Private Teaching Studio.

Catherine’s students have passed hundreds of singing & music exams, including many passes with distinction, and her students regularly win medals at local music festivals. Advanced students have gained places at leading training colleges and some have also gone on to perform in professional concerts & theatre including the West End.

Singer / Actor & Director Ian MacDonald

is the course director of Vocal Performance Academy.

Ian trained at The Royal Academy of Music London & at Edinburgh University and has performed throughout Europe in Oratorio, Modern Opera, Jazz & Music Theatre.

He has directed Theatre & Dance companies, and co-ordinated award winning National Youth Music Projects.

Ian has also taught at London’s Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts & Central School of Speech & Drama and many of his students have gone on to successful careers in the West End and elsewhere. He is the Senior Voice Consultant for the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine, and is in much demand for lectures and masterclasses.

Together, their expertise, experience & technique has proven highly effective for all musical styles, including musical theatre, opera & operetta, classical art song, jazz, cabaret, gospel and pop vocals.

They have equipped hundreds of singers with the tools to improve and strengthen their singing voices and develop as individual performers in their own right

Many of their former students have gone on to establish performance careers in the West End, Repertory Theatre and in Oratorio, Opera & in Concert, and younger students have gone on to gain places at some of the UK’s foremost training academies.

Call Vocal Performance Academy today, and begin your journey to sing among the stars!

...studied Singing and Piano at TRINITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC, LONDON winning many competitions and awards.

She did further study specialising in Bach & Russian Song at the BRITTEN-PEARS SCHOOL in Aldeburgh.

Catherine had previously studied Dance and Musical Theatre at GUILDFORD SCHHOL of DANCE & DRAMA

(now Guildford Conservatoire) where she also gained recognition as a choreographer.

Her professional career spans Opera, Operetta, Concert and Recital Work throughout the British Isles together with a wide range of West End and Repertory Theatre.

On leaving college, Catherine immediately secured a contract at Birmingham Repertory Theatre in a revival of Irving Berlin’s Musical Call Me Madam, and went on to secure principal roles in shows including The Phantom Of The Opera, The Sound Of Music, The Girlfriend, H.M.S.Pinafore, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Pirates of Penzance, Annie, Bless the Bride, Perchance to Dream, The Girl from Vancouver, Oklahoma & in Pantomime, Sinbad the Sailor, with Ken Dodd!

Catherine has been engaged as soloist in numerous Oratorio, Concert & Recital engagements throughout the UK, Vienna, Eastern Europe and Australia.

She has sung for Prime Ministers & Heads of State at the House of Commons & the City of London, and has also sung on the QE2 and other prestigious cruise liners.

Catherine has lived in Chalfont St Peter & Gerrards Cross for the past 11 years where she has run her own very successful teaching practice - Vocal Performance Studio - teaching hundreds of children, teenagers & adults singing & piano.

The effectiveness of her technique is evident in numerous testimonials of her mentors, colleagues and former students.

For the past 12 years she has also taught at London’s Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts as an individual singing teacher with emphasis on technique, and also as a music theatre repertoire tuition coach (one to one) teaching students on both the musical theatre and acting degree and post-graduate courses and many of her students have gone on to successful careers, appearing in West End shows including

Les Miserables, Avenue Q, Fame, Tonight’s the Night, The Boyfriend, Annie, Buddy and Guys & Dolls.

Younger students have recently been successful in winning places at London's Millennium Dance School, Breton Hall (Part of Leeds University) and one 17 year old student recently also got through to ‘boot camp’ on TV’s 2006 X-factor – (no mean feet in getting through to the final 300 out of 100,000!!!)

Catherine was Head of Singing at Elmhurst Ballet School from 2000 – 2002 and was also musical director for several performance showcases and informal concerts, and has also taught at Guildford Conservatoire & L.A.M.D.A.

Prior to this she was invited to teach singing in the context of musical theatre to acting students at Central School of Speech and Drama for 2 years from 1997-99, developing and staging several music theatre compilations.

She was also visiting lecturer in music theatre performance, singing, piano & guitar locally atAmersham & Wycombe Collegeteaching on both the BTEC and HND Courses from1996-2000, where she was also MUSICAL DIRECTOR for a full scale production of 'Godspell' in 1998/99.

Locally, Catherine teaches teenagers (from the ages of 11 to 18) singing and piano at Burnham Grammar School and previously taught primary & secondary aged children for 5 years at

Holy Cross Convent School (ages 5 – 18). She has also produced & directed numerous concerts and theatre presentations

Hundreds of s tudents have been successfully entered for exams with Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Trinity College of Music (now Trinity Guildhall), the Associated Board, and London College of Music, together with preparing and entering students for music festivals in Maidenhead, Marlow, Chesham & Watford where over the last 10 years her students have won literally hundreds of classes and Bronze, Silver & Gold medals.

Catherine is also Musical Director of the prize-winning Buckinghamshire based girls choir - the Chiltern Voices.

Chiltern Voices are in much demand to sing at weddings & concerts all around Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Herts, Birmingham, Kent, Essex & London, and they have won many Gold, Silver & Bronze medals and cups at several local music festivals in recent years.

...is a graduate of THE ROYAL ACADEMY of MUSIC, LONDON & EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY. At the Royal Academy he studied with Robert Sutherland, Edward Brooks and Lyndon van der Pump, and has performed throughout Europe in Oratorio, Modern Opera & Jazz. He has toured extensively as a lieder recitalist and given much time to the works of Schumann, Benjamin Britten and Schubert - particularly Winterreise – to much critical acclaim.

Ian worked with Benjamin Zander, as one of his master class performers, singing in London, Cambridge, Zurich and in Montreaux for three years.

His Music Theatre performances include Annie Get Your Gun, Frederick in The Pirates of Penzance and Danny in Grease.

Ian has also been in much demand as a soloist for contemporary new works including Sons of the Wheel at The Playhouse Theatre: as Dr Stirling in Ocean at Minema, BAC and Edinburgh Festival; Adonis in Venus at the Hackney Empire and for several new works by Paul Ayres.

Dido and Aeneas; The Pilgrims Progress, La Boheme (understudy Rodolfo); Eugene Onegin (understudy Lenski); and Herr Frank in Mozart’s comic opera

Ian has also worked as an actor in works by Shakespeare, Checkov, Lillian Helman and Christopher Isherwood amongst others.

He was Director of the cross-arts, experimental theatre company ArtFuzion from 1992-1997 which performed regularly at London’s The Place and at the Edinburgh Festival.

Alongside directing and choreographing, Ian has studied ballet, contemporary dance and extended vocal techniques.

With Artsplace & Artswise, Ian worked to provide curriculum based on-site education programs, specifically designed around young people and the history of their individual environments.

He was also a key player in Sound Inventors, the hugely successful, award winning team [Royal Philharmonics Prestigious education award 2003] that brought
composing and world renowned composers such as Django Bates; Alistair Nicholson, Stephen Montague, John Woolrich to every area of the British Isles over a three year period,

giving children from every corner and every ability the change to write and perform and record their own music.

Ian taught for many years at London’s Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts as an individual singing teacher with emphasis on technique, and also as a music theatre repertoire tuition coach (one to one) teaching students on both the musical theatre and acting degree and post-graduate courses.

Many of his former students have gone on to successful careers in the West End & elsewhere appearing in productions including Avenue Q, The Rat Pack, Tonight’s the Night,

Blood Brothers, The Last Five Years, Starlight Express, Seven Bride’s for Seven Brothers, Miss Saigon,

He also works alongside tutors at London’s Royal Academy of Music Theatre Course using the Estill voice-training model

Ian is currently the senior voice consultant with the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine (Bapam) www.bapam.org.uk and is much in demand for lectures and masterclasses.

Miranda has just finished training on the MA Musical Theatre course at Guildford School of Acting. Whilst there she played roles including Zoe in ‘When Midnight Strikes’, Maisie in ‘The Boy Friend’, Gabby in ‘City of Angels’ and part of the Ensemble in ‘Anything Goes’ at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford. She also worked on and helped devise a new piece which was performed at Hampstead’s New End Theatre.

Miranda previously trained in Acting at Bretton Hall which is now part of the University of Leeds. Her training covered all aspects of acting and in her finale year she played one of the terrorists in ‘Terrorism’ by the Brothers Presnyakov, worked on a devised fantasy small cast piece, directed a section of ‘Angels in America’ and wrote and performed a solo piece about Judy Garland called ‘Judy In-Between’.

In what little spare time she had at Bretton, Miranda performed in and directed various extra curricular shows including: Madeline Tru in ‘The Wild Party’, Patricia Fodor in ‘Crazy for You’, Brenda in ‘Witches of Eastwick’ and Ensemble roles in ‘Return to the Forbidden Planet’, ‘Jekyll and Hyde’, ‘Grease’ as well as directing ‘You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown’ twice and ‘Godspell’ at the Wakefield Theatre Royal.

Miranda is now back in Buckinghamshire and working as a professional actress. Whilst in between jobs she privately coaches students for drama school entry and LAMDA exams as well as teaching at the Vocal Performance Academy and other Stage Schools. Miranda has been entertaining at children’s parties for almost nine years as ‘Skittles’ with ‘Rainbows’.

In her spare time Miranda can be found at the theatre or practicing her singing, guitar and saxophone or even dancing at Pineapple Studios – a performer must have many skills!

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Past and Guest Directors