A former squatter who now lives in Primrose Hill, she’s classical but indie, listens to Bartok and Grizzly Bear in equal measure and uses the fantasy of fairy tales to reflect her own reality.
She’s constantly late, devoted to making music and relies on the intense heat of Bikram yoga to relax.
She said: “My days, which I love, are a round of rehearsals and writing. It’s like putting a huge patchwork quilt together of musicians, a choir, and the piece itself. It’s definitely the biggest thing I’ve ever done. It’s amazing to do three nights because I’ve never had the opportunity to refine the performance as I go along, see how everyone grows with the piece.”
The Roundhouse chief executive and artistic director Marcus Davey offered Ana the use of The Roundhouse Experimental Choir.
She said: “He’s a huge supporter of what I do. I could’ve made my life easy, done my normal set and arranged some songs for the choir but I thought this is such an amazing opportunity, I’ve been writing for a long time with a choir in my head, why not write a whole new suite of songs.”
The volume of work is such that it’s the first time Ana’s had to learn the words to her own songs.
As is her style, Oracles takes the form of a story.
She said: “My music so far isn’t necessarily personal in a confessional sense, it is obviously personal to me but I filter it through stories or folk tales to bring my own personal story out. This is very much like that. I’ve taken the arc of a fairy story which starts with a dark kingdom and something’s gone wrong, someone’s died, lost something hugely important and picks up the trajectory of that loss to a kind of redemption and acceptance. It’s got that traditional story arc, along the way the falling in love, re-emergence of self, but starts off with grief. It sort of connects to my own personal experience over the years of grief and loss but it’s also an archetypal story.”
The grief Ana alludes to is the loss of both her mother and brother in a short time.
She grew up in a single parent family and Ana’s relationship with her mother and brother was close. It was her English teacher mother who first sparked her interest in words, Ana’s early ambition was to be a writer, and enrolled her in a choir as a child.
She auditioned for the English National Opera aged 13 and was soon singing for them, although opera was never her real passion.
Instead, Ana was attracted to folk songwriters and classical music, both of which have heavily influenced her own work.
At 15, she decided to live in a squat, still going to school and singing with the ENO, but returning home to live with this anarchic, eclectic community.
She said: “My mum was surprisingly cool about it. There was a very colourful scene at the time. I met a nice group of people I wanted to hang out with, I didn’t really want to be at home and I was still singing at the opera house so that was quite weird.”
More recently she recorded single My Home Town with members of Antony and the Johnsons in Brooklyn – another hive of musical activity her mother suggested visiting.
She said: “There’s a whole scene of classical indie musicians. Being away from London allowed me to write in a more personal way, something about being away from yourself, kind of freed me a lot. I immediately felt so at home and loved it, it’s so vibrant, people were so collaborative.”
Her impressions of living in Berlin were not quite so inspiring.
She said: “What I took away from Berlin was an appreciation of London. It made me realise how much I have here.”
And here she remains – at least until Oracles is over.
More information from www.anasilvera.com and www.roundhouse.org.uk
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