Brian has a voice of gold

SOUTH East Clare actor Brian James Roche (pictured below) has scooped a top award at this year’s World Championships of Performing Arts in Los Angeles.

 

The Ardnacrusha man made a big impact on the judges. He received the title of best overall performer in the vocal championship, receiving a gold medal, while he received four silver medals for his performances in other categories during the heats. He also received a scholarship to the New York Conservatory of Dramatic Arts.

“I won best overall performer in the vocal worlds. The other vocal categories are Broadway pop and rock with the top 20 qualifying for the semis. They are really tough to make.
“The Philippines, Australia, South Africa and USA had over 35 contestants each and all of them had previous experience with the competition. They were fantastic and were really well prepared, as all of their talent scouts and national directors had been to the competition many times before. Then there was little me representing Ireland. I believe we have a big team attending next year but this time it was just me,” he said.

Brian said all his performances went really well. He put this down to his preparation and he said he felt lucky to take silvers in acting contemporary, best original vocal, vocal world (self accompaniment) and ballet acrobatic dance.

“The gold was a complete surprise. I sang The Parting Glass by Willie Clancy and it closed the heats coincidentally and was just nice and pure. It’s such a nice song and Americans love it, so it beat off some fierce competition,” he said.
In respect of reaching the semi-finals in the acting category, he said, “I wasn’t expecting it at all. I thought only doing one piece of contemporary acting, when the others were doing five, would stand against me but the judges from Broadway, Nashville and LA liked it so much that they put me through. It’s a poem that my friend Mike McNamara and I wrote about a year ago called I Like Girls Who Can Sing and the semis went very well,” he said.

Not getting through to the final showcase was a big disappointment but, in spite of that, he said he feels great to have done so well.
He admits it probably hasn’t sunk in yet. “The pieces didn’t go as well in the heats as I would have liked them to and silver medals don’t usually make finals. You have to be hitting gold in all categories but the honour of becoming world champion in the vocal world division is overwhelming,” he said.

Brian is now going to take a holiday before he returns to the stage in the West End production of Faulty Towers, in which he plays Manuel.

“We, the contestants and I, worked ourselves to the bone, both creatively and physically, while we were there but the best thing about the competition was that we were all in it together. I personally wrote five songs over there. It’s like John Cleese says, ‘an open mind leads to creativity and ideas and you have to close that mind to turn it into reality’.”

Brian returns home on Friday and with Parteen in the junior and intermediate championship, he hopes to tog out if he can.