Amelia Hope

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Amelia Hope


Amelia Hope is a Maltese singer, presenter, born Amanda Friggieri.

from her official website:

Amanda discovered her voice during the casual karaoke nights with her friends, when strangers used to express their interest in her talent. Her intention was not to disregard any of those comments and soon started searching for opportunities where she could showcase her voice and start being trained.

Having a versatile voice, Amanda has to date worked on several projects focusing on various genres. Her first project, kick started with the release of a song written by herself under the name "Amelia" and produced by Elton Zarb & Maddee Dargue, called “A Blind Girl’s Whisper”. The ‘Blind Girl’ quickly brought her luck as after having released same, she was offered the opportunity to work as featuring artist on a trance tune produced in Germany by Producer Daniel Reichow for German DJs, Final Aeon. The track, called “Another Place”, was signed by German record label, I.M. Red Trance Digital, and is for sale on iTunes and Beatport.

Having heard of her, such an experience was very relevant to a duo of Maltese DJs, Anthony Meachen and Steven Psaila, known as Lost Emotions, when they were searching for the right vocalist to join their project. It wasn't long after they met that Lost Emotions & Amelia produced their first collaboration tune, “Rain”, which was soon signed by Crystal Source Recordings in the UK. Rain is a trance tune and is available to purchase from the Beatport website. The other track they co-produced is “Distant Love”, which was later signed by Milk Records in Italy and can be purchased from both iTunes and Beatport.

After several collaborations, including one with Aliens in the Basement, where Amelia's strong voice featured in the chorus of their song called "Coda", the need for some change started to be felt. Amelia has been meanwhile training her voice at various coaches including Maddee Dargue, Ludwig Galea and her current tutor Ivan Degabriele of The Voice Academy Malta. It did not take many coaches to realise that Amelia needed to explore the jazz and soul scene. This was where she started listening to a big deal of jazz, soul, funk and blues artists and soon fell in love with the genre. The most important thing is that Hope did not simply choose the style she loved, but that which suited her the most.

Amelia’s first experience in the jazz & lounge scene was when she acted as vocalist and lyricist in a local band called Tact. Launched in October 2010, line up consisted of classical guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, herself as singer & lyricist and sometimes also a saxophone. The style was mainly lounge broken down into classical, soul and jazzy tunes; pretty much of a new fusion for Malta.

This is when Amelia stepped into the wedding industry, joining forces with professional session musicians and band members to entertain weddings with a vast & elegant repertoire of jazz standards, classics, ballads, and modern songs depending on the couple’s preferences; marking covers from some of the greatest artists.

After hearing that a very good, funk band was looking for a vocalist, Amelia was tempted to give the audition a shot. That same night, less than an hour later, Amelia was contacted by the founder and drummer of the band, Ilja Albrecht, who asked whether she would like to join “Zeriouz Funk”. Hope immediately accepted and has had the pleasure of performing quite a number of times with the band, including at some of the most successful, local events like the Beerfest and the Notte Bianca. The band played a fusion of funk & rock tunes from top artists like Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Sting, Wild Cherry, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Daft Punk, Mother’s Finest & more. Hope's arrival, inspired the band to take a more soulful direction thus keeping to its funk roots, as well as write original material. Line up consisted of vocals, drums, bass, guitars and keyboards. While the band is still going, Amelia has given herself some space to concentrate on her own original material which is still work in progress.

Amelia Hope

Having been recording a number of cover versions to showcase her versatile voice, thanks to Rene Mamo at Treble Studios and Jody Fiteni / Robert Morrison at Renegade Studios, today Amelia marks the start of her solo career under the name of "Amelia Hope". In search of her own style, Amelia wanted to grasp her previous soul, funk and jazz experience to incorporate it into her own song-writing, hence composing something in between the style she loves and that which the audience wants to hear. This compromise, allowed her to focus on a mixture of genres keeping her soulish influence and combining it with some brass and jazzy elements, funky rhythms and orchestrations, which when mixed with modern sounds, create a pop fusion.

This is exactly what Amelia has done when composing the melody of her first release, "Story Of My Life", which talks about the story of Hope. Having also written her own lyrics & melody, Amelia has thrown into the song, some snippets from her life and tells us how music was always there for her as she explains in the chorus: "Story of my life and I would rather put my records on - just one good song and it's all gone". Over two years had already passed from the writing of Story OF My Life until Amelia finally got in touch with Niki Gravino at Foreface Studios. Having been a big fan of Gravino herself, Amelia felt she could totally trust him with the music arrangement and production of her story. After digging deep into the fusion of styles Amelia wanted to incorporate in her music, Niki managed to come up with something very interesting and gave the song the feel of a movie soundtrack, thus making it ideal as the very first track of Hope's new project. “Story of my Life” was mastered by Emile Sande’s own mastering engineer behind her album “Our Version of Events”!

Story Of My Life will be backed up by a music video which is currently being shot in various locations, with a cast of over 50 people! With a Production by Tower Studios and the help of Evolution Media, the video script tells the story of Amelia’s life and the common obstacles in the life of a child and a teenager, growing up into a responsible adult. The video aims to shed light on troubled kids and bullied teens & adults that if help is sought, life can be one hell of a beautiful ride. But apart from “Story of my Life”, Amelia has entrusted Tower Studios, particularly Sam Hayman, with the production of the other 5 songs in her E.P., which will be called “PerplexCity”. This will feature 6 original songs written and composed by Amelia herself with music arrangements and mixing by Sam Hayman.

Songs from her E.P. will be played on most local radios and TV, featured on Amelia's Soundcloud & social networks and will be available for online purchase. The E.P. is planned to be launched online by the end of Summer 2014.


See also

Category:Amelia Hope Photos

External links