Cynthia Erivo
Appearances
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
So we don't differentiate the two so far apart that we're afraid of one of them because they're sort of one and the same. And I think that because I was already in tune with my singing voice, what Philip did with me was encourage me to try new things. try more. So he would have me singing arias from Othello.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I was comfortable classical music was sort of a love of mine and then when I went to drama school my voice was already sort of ready to try that and it's the same whilst I was doing The Color Purple my singing teacher June
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Joan Lader, rather, who's wonderful, she would give me classical music or opera to sing, because she said that the best way to allow my voice to be open enough to sing what I was singing on stage was to just try something that was totally opposite to it. So you weren't taxing your voice the same way the entire time. You were just sort of opening it up and exercising it, but not stressing it.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I'll do one of the first things I did, um, at secondary school, actually, because we'd always do sort of like the end of year, um, like choral show. And, um, this one year we decided to do, uh, Rutter Requiem, the Rutter Requiem by John Rutter. Um, And I was asked to sing P.A. There's a version of P.A. Yesu for the Gianratto Requiem, and it's very special.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Who knows if I can still do these notes, but I'll give it a go. Ahem.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Dona eis requiem Requiem aeternam Dona eis domine Dona eis domine Then it would change keys. Pies o domine And this key change is always really difficult. Oh, so beautiful.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I guess there's a couple of things that are happening. Your breath is different. The way you place, the way you use your tongue is different. The tongue placement is different in your mouth. It's almost like even the way you use the muscles in your face, often to make those sounds, they're Your jaw has to be slightly lowered and relaxed.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
And often, I don't know if you, when you watch me sing, you'll see that I sing often with a bit of a smile on. One, I'm enjoying myself. But two, when you smile, everything else is relaxed.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
When I meet the wizard, once I prove my worth. Then I meet the wizard, what I've waited for since birth. And with all his wizard wisdom, by my looks...
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
She surpassed a lot of her dreams. Her dream was to be a nurse. So she got that and then had to change it. I watched her sort of go, okay, I got my nursing degree. And now what else do I want? I think she definitely wanted to be in the UK with children. I know she wanted children. I think she wanted more children than she has, but she's very happy with the two that she does.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
And I think that she sort of learnt after the dream of being a nurse came true that she had this sort of passion for taking care of children full stop. And so she focused her studies on the cognitive health of children and ended up becoming, there's a position in the UK called Health Visitor.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
And her job specifically is to help new mothers with children from the age of, say, one month almost to the age of three. Just with learning cognitive skills and making sure that the mother isn't suffering from postpartum. And if they are, then she can help and she makes sure that the children are latching in the right way or...
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
If there's anything going on or there's colic or all of those things, all the things that you would you might panic about if you don't have any guidance. My mother is there to help you with. That's what her job used to be. And she sort of flew with it. She got rose to the top of her ranks on that one. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah, she's cool. It's really fun. I realise that she's like the child whisperer. It's really fun watching her with other people's children because they don't really know how it's done and I don't know how it's done. I feel like I've been, it feels like it's in our genes because I end up being the same with kids and I don't really need to do very much and
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Kids sort of are like, oh, look, what's this interesting looking being sitting next to me? I want to know who that person is. And we're off to the races. It's hilarious. I think she passed it on.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
He told just me. He told me that he was out of our lives. And I sort of had to relay the message to everyone. Yeah. What was your reaction? Could you see that coming? I didn't see it coming, although in hindsight I probably should have seen it coming, but I didn't see it coming because, you know, what 16-year-old would?
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
At the time I was heartbroken because it was in public when it happened as well, so it was just, like, not fun. But, yeah, it was deeply disappointing, deeply heartbreaking. And I think I... felt bad for having to have to bring that information back to my house, to my mum and my sister. And I remember it was in the middle of a school day, so I still had to go through school.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
That was not fun. Did he give you an explanation? No, not really, no. No, I think he just had, I think he was finished being a dad.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I don't know. I, I, I, I don't know if I was thinking about that.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I, I never really compartmentalized it. I just saw someone doing something that hurt me. And I think it was just sort of as simple as that. He was doing something that he knew would hurt me to be mean and spiteful, but I knew that he was going to stick to it. I knew that it wasn't like a jab that he would take back at some point. Have you spoken to him since? No. Wow.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Actually, tell a lie, I bumped into him randomly at a cousin's wedding. We had an awkward sort of hello, and that's it, when I was 25.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Yeah. So when I wrote it, we had gotten to a point where I knew that we needed an up-tempo song. We needed something with like...
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
that felt upbeat and that felt fun but I love writing ballads I love writing love songs I can't help it it's sort of I'm so I'm a mid-tempo don't need to apologize that's what I do and like I enjoy them um I enjoy singing because of the space in them but then and so as we started writing I thought what can you make this about and my friend who is also the EP on this album with me he said
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
that he had been talking to a friend of ours about the relationship that she had had with her father. She said that the relationship wasn't great all the time, but they were starting to rebuild and that they were starting to have some really good moments. And then he passed away. And then she said, but she just wants to remember the good.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
And the light bulb went off, and I was like, that's the song. That's the song. The song is about remembering the good, even when something ends maybe not in the best of ways.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Doesn't spring from it see holding my chest as all my tears fall out my mind's in a spin as all the pain pours down what can i do to make these days go by i haven't the strength to make the rain fall i just want to remember
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I don't know because I never, I mean, the thing is a lot of people don't realize I am as short as I am. I did not realize it. I was reading about you and I was like, really? I mean, I spend a lot of my time in heels, but like often when I'm with other people, they're also like dressed up or in their heels. And so when I'm standing next to them, they're like, oh my goodness, you're really small.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I think there have been times often that people assume that because you're small, you are weak or because you're small. Sometimes people, they often decide that because you're small, you're also childlike, which sometimes is really strange because you have to sort of correct people and let them understand, well, actually, I'm a fully grown adult. I just happen to be small. So...
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
my understanding of what you are saying or what anyone else is saying is just the same.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
So your legs are swinging off the ground. Right, exactly. Yeah, that's a thing. So you end up having to like perch to the edge of the seat so your feet can touch the ground. Podiums? Podiums are hilarious because sometimes you're also like, you know what, today I'm just going to swallow my pride and ask them for a little step so I can reach the podium and feel like I'm a normal height.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
and reach this thing so i'm not having to tiptoe ever so slightly or wear you know 15 inch heels that it's sort of like it's that you you have to take the good with the bad with it definitely um stools high chairs are really sometimes quite difficult because you know if you're singing and you want to sit you're often on a stool so you have to try and make sure that the stool is not too high for you to sit on
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
And so I always make the compromise with whatever dress I'm wearing or whatever clothes, because if they cover my feet, you can't see how far my feet are from the ground.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
This has been so much fun. You are wonderful. So thank you.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
That I'm stuck like glue. Cause I ain't never, I ain't never, I ain't never, no, no, loved a man the way that I, I love him.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
When I was a kid, and we were... So there's this radio station in the UK called Magic FM, and it plays everything. Everything from, let's say, I don't know if you know a band called Mike and the Mechanics, to the Eurythmics, to Kate Bush, to Aretha, to Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle, Lauryn Hill, the whole lot. And so when we were only...
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
be on the way to school, my mum would always have that radio station on. And the first time I heard it, it was from there. I think, I want to say the first thing I heard was sisters are doing it for themselves. And then I heard, I think it was Till You Come Back to Me. So I had heard Aretha in like two different ways. One with Annie Lennox and then one on her own from two different times.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
And I just sort of fell in love. I didn't really, I didn't really know because I didn't know who that was. And then I started asking questions and my mum told me it was Aretha Franklin. And so I was aware of How much I loved music and that I wanted to be a singer and I just sort of fell in love with her voice.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
The fact that she could do that with Annie Lennox and then that on her own just was astounding to me. Did you try to emulate her? I don't think I tried to emulate her. I just wanted to listen to everything she had. And I started learning her music pretty, pretty early. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
It's time to try. Defying gravity I think I'll try Defying gravity And you can't pull me down Can't I make you understand You're having delusions of grandeur I'm through accepting limits
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Oh, yeah. Why was that important? Because the breath, I think, tells you everything about what the person is trying to say. You know, if you look at a sentence, where the comma goes tells you what the sentence means. If I say, today I've been feeling really, really bad. But, and now I say, today I've been feeling really bad. Bad. But it'll be all right.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Well, now it's one is I feel ill and one is emotionally I feel bad. You see? And so when she would breathe in different places and it would change the sentence structure, it would change the meaning of the song. Another person might sing it a completely different way. Can you sing us an example of what you mean? Sure. I use the song often to explain it because it's one, it's a beautiful song.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
And two, I had to really, really dig in and learn it. And three, just is a wonderful example of how the breath work changes. It's called Never Grow Old. I had to learn it for the Amazing Grace episode. And it, It goes like this. The sentence is, I have heard of a land on a faraway strand. That's the sentence. The normal way to sing it is, I have heard of a land on a faraway strand.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Right? She sings. I have heard of a land on a far, far
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
She just has this way with music. The way she manipulates it and uses it to tell the story is really special. And it's that sort of making you wait for the explanation. Because it's a difference between... Moving from one note to the other really quickly, I have heard, as opposed to I have heard. of a land, you know?
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I think I was that. I didn't really know what to say, but I was also sort of disarmed by how funny she was. She was so, like... jovial she joked that when I first met her she sang the last sentence of my big song back at me and so I almost fell over because Aretha Franklin is singing and I'm here back at me and I just I didn't know what to to do I think I just laughed I was like oh my god um
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Cause someone says they're so Some things I cannot change But till I try I'll never know Too long I've been afraid of Losing love I guess I've lost Well if that's love It comes at much too high a cost I'd sooner abide Defying gravity
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
And I remember her saying, well, you can sing. I was like, oh my God, this is nuts. It just, you know, I don't know if I needed anything more meaningful than that, to be honest, because if the Queen of Soul can remember you as the person who can sing, well, wonderful. Wonderful.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I did grow up in church, but different because I'm Roman Catholic is what I was raised on. But I was a bit of a rebel. So when... I was in church. It was a lot of like Christian hymns. And I wanted more because I was sort of, I was listening to gospel music and I was learning about gospel singers and I was learning about that sound. And I wanted to I wanted to hear it in my own church.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
So one of the churches, when we moved to East London from South London, and that church had a choir. So I remember they asked if I could join the choir, and so I did. And then somehow I managed to... end up being, like, one of the conductors of the choir. And I would just, like, sneak gospel songs in from time to time and just have them, like, sing a couple gospel songs.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Consequently, I got into trouble for it. And they were like, you can't sing those songs in here anymore. And I never understood why, because I felt like All music that was for the same reason was equal and was meaningful.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I think the style of singing was where the objection came. There's a particularly straight-laced way of praising that's correct music. for the Catholic Church. There's a specific way that you should do it and a specific thing that you can sing. There are specific songs and anything outside of the lines is too far.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Yeah, I just because I didn't know that that was even a possibility. When I was going through primary school or secondary school, no one was like, you can go to drama school. No one gave me that option. So the whole thing was revelatory. Like the first year was both discovery and a struggle and a half because I just like, what am I doing?
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
doing here and i so there's so many things i don't really understand is what was my strong suit was that i was a little bit different to most people that i was one of the kids that was good at singing and we had a particularly musical year so there were a couple of other kids who could sing too and actually being able to sing was really useful and and when i started to embrace
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
that I sort of could see where the opportunities were. Some people were really wonderful at the classics and at Jacobi's and, you know, those kids that came from Eton who had read those things were brilliant at those things. But I wasn't that. My raw talent came from and understanding music. So when we started talking about Sondheim and learning those songs, for me, I was in heaven.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
And when we started reading Seven Guitars by August Wilson, I recognised myself in those people because, well, it was a black writer writing about black people and I could see myself in them. And those are plays I had read and there's a playwright I'd heard of. And when you're passionate about music,
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
acting, Shakespeare was where we all sort of like joined hands because, well, we all knew Shakespeare, but now I could have a sort of a real grasp on the scope at which he wrote.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I loved Being Alive, and I loved The Middle Son. Have you ever heard The Middle Son?
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Yeah, that's one of my favorite songs. That is one of those songs where you're like, if you don't breathe in the right place, you won't make it to the end of the sentence. Can you give us an example of what you mean? Oh, my God. I don't even know if I can remember the lyrics. I haven't done it for such a long time.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
They say, it's a wink and a wiggle and a giggle and a grass and I'll trip the light pandango.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
A pinch and a diddle in the middle of what passes by. It's a very short road from the pinch and the punch to the porch and the pouch and the pension. It's a very short road to the 10,000th lunch and the porch and the pouch and the sigh. In the meanwhile, there are mouths to be kissed before mouths to be fed and a lot in between in the meanwhile. And the girl has to celebrate.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
What passes by, oh, I shall marry the mill of sun.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
I had a really lovely teacher at Rada. It was Philip. He was just... He was wonderful, actually. I will say that my singing teacher at Brada, we're all sort of assigned a singing teacher. Most of us, because we've never sung before, um... So we can learn about what that is and learn how to connect the singing voice and the singing breath with the speaking voice and the speaking breath.