Sharon started teaching singing and performance 22 years ago. Her first job was as the Individual Vocals Tutor at the Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) in Guildford, where she spent a year and a half before going freelance (she's been teaching individuals from her base in Cranleigh ever since). Sharon has also taught songwriting at Hurtwood House School (6th form public school) and was the singi
ng and performance tutor at Cranleigh Arts Centre from 2000 - 2006. From 2006 - 2010 she was the singing tutor for the West Sussex Adult & Community Learning Service and is choral director for the Cranleigh Community Choir, which she set up in January 2006 (she also set up and ran the Dorking Community Choir for three years from 2011 - 2014). Sharon started out as a singer/songwriter on a semi-professional basis at fifteen and then trained as a teacher. She moved to London in her early twenties where she was lead singer in numerous rock bands, eventually having her own band playing predominantly her own compositions. In the early eighties, she started working as a session singer at the prestigious Abbey Road Studios and was then signed for a record deal. Sharon took a break from singing whilst she brought up her daughter, during which time she undertook a formal classical training with Findlay Wilson of English National Opera. She returned to professional singing in 1999 and now works full-time as a singer, singing teacher, vocal and performance coach and choral director. With the strong basis of a formal classical training, being a qualified teacher combined with her years of experience, Sharon possesses a sound knowledge of how to develop good vocal technique, how to overcome bad vocal habits and of course how to develop good performance technique, as demonstrated by her extremely successful and much loved student showcase “The Big Night Out with Bells On”, which ran for ten years, giving her the added skill of directing and producing large, complex music shows. She continues to produce the Cranleigh Community Choir...and friends concerts which take place twice a year and also produced Eleanore & the Lost's debut album launch in 2009. In 2011, Sharon was chosen as one of only two music mentors by the international charity WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) to work with young people on the charity's nationwide competition "My True Nature" as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations. The brief involved working with a secondary school in Lancashire to compose the music and lyrics for a song within one day; the whole event proved to be a great success. As a singer, Sharon has the rare natural ability to sing any style of music, effortlessly moving from classical to rock, r’n’b, jazz, folk, soul, bluegrass, pop etc. She is an accomplished jazz singer, as much as she is a rock or classical singer and is able to use her voice as a proper instrument, showing different colours and tones, dependent on the style of music. Sharon works with her daughter Eleanore as a function singer - singing contemporary repertoire including jazz, soul, r'n'b, soft rock and pop. In addition to this, she sings backing vocals in Eleanore's band Eleanore & the Lost performing Eleanore's original music. Sharon also manages Eleanore & the Lost, releasing the debut album "Parlour Game" in November 2009. There have been two singles in between: "My True Nature" 2011 and "Summertime" - August 2013. The second Eleanore & the Lost album "The Gift" is being released in three parts: Part I was released in May 2014; Part II was released in July 2015 and in the interim, Eleanore has composed for independent films. Eleanore & the Lost started the promotion of the first two parts of the second album with gigs around the UK from October 2016 - October 2017.
