About Chloë March

I've been a musician for a while now ~ starting with improvising on the piano, moving on to writing piano-based songs, then full scores for theatre productions while I studied drama and playwriting at Uni, playing keyboards for Cousteau, teaching piano, writing plays and finally settling to songwriting and production in earnest, setting up a home studio and working for three years on my album ‘Divining’.

I compose instrumental music as well as the songs. In 2008 I wrote a 40min orchestral/electronic soundtrack for the dance/theatre piece ‘Politik’ performed at the Michaelis Theatre, London. The music was partly influenced by Stravinsky, Tippett and Weill, as well as retaining my own style at the core and I absolutely loved seeing the dancers respond to it.

Writing for french horn is a big part of my songwriting. My sister Emma plays all the horn parts on my recordings and she is a fantastic player. Her tone is absolutely beautiful. It's an instrument I grew up hearing, so I feel very familiar with it and love the way it sounds with my voice too.

I love to write lyrics and for me they are just as important as the music. I always start with the words, even if it's just one word and then try to weave an atmosphere around the emotions/images of the lyric. Each song is a kind of miniature film that I score. My ultimate aim is to evoke imagery/place imbued with emotion.

I find it very hard to pinpoint my influences. I think the most important has to be hearing my mum's piano practice ~ a kind of constant soundtrack to my life growing up. Composers like Ravel, Debussy, Schumann, Vaughan Williams, Britten and Steve Reich have all had a huge impact on the way that I think about writing music. Then there's Kate Bush, who made me realise that you could write songs about anything if you were good enough. I love her brilliant conjuring of atomsphere and the way that she taps into archetypes and imaginative worlds that I didn't think anyone else shared when I first heard her music. So when I say I'm inspired and influenced by her it's those qualities that I mean, not the vocal delivery. ‘Hounds of Love’ was on repeat play, as was ‘The Dreaming’. It would be daft to try and go through every musician who's ever had an influence on me. I'll just say that the following were a revelation in different ways:

Sting, Jane Siberry, Pink Floyd, Yes, John Lennon, Simon and Garfunkel, Suzanne Vega, Nina Simone, Keith Jarrett, Gabriel Yared, Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, Björk, the cocteau twins, David Sylvian, dead can dance......

I hope you enjoy the songs and if you would like to commission music for theatre/film/dance please contact me here