Sarah McGuinness began her musical career in Ireland, where she grew up singing harmonies with her mother and sisters on long Sunday drives around Donegal. She continued to be fascinated by harmony from Motown to choral and everything in between. She abandoned the formality of years of orchestral training to develop a spontaneous and more direct creative style where she now composes every musical part vocally (Bobby McFerrin style!) prior to recording on instruments. Video coming soon of Sarah at work in the studio
Growing up without much cash around meant she couldn't afford to buy current singles, so she listened to whatever was available in the local library. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise where she got to know the music of 'older' generations of musicians, so developing a love for early Bowie and the sound and look of British glam rock, the Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop.
She also fell in love with re-runs of 60’s series and the escapism of early Bond – and with the atmospheric scores of John Barry and Lalo Schifrin. She attempted to blend their exotic cold-war style and 60’s instrumentation with solo songs.
Moving to London in her late teens she pursued acting for a period, where she worked on a show with Ben Bartlett (Walking With Dinosaurs score Grammy winner) and was inspired by his work – the power of scoring drama became apparent to her. She later decided to pursue soundtrack and live work, writing intros/scores for Eddie Izzard and play scores for other theatre companies.
She wrote the signature song 'Miss You' for ‘Whacked’ by Jake West, well-known British horror director and ‘Secrets’ by Paul Hills.
Her first single was ‘Mandy Says’ produced by John O’Neill of the Undertones. Her later work drifted more towards the orchestral Barry-influence which has led to a collaboration with Ed Buller.
Her current soundtrack, for the documentary BELIEVE, was produced byMickey Petralia in Los Angeles. She developed the main theme, ballad ‘Mama Can You See Me Now’, as a series of complete songs in many different forms throughout the film. It can be heard in musical variations, from the 60’s radio jingle to the 80’s versions, finally coming to a head near the final revelation of the story.
Most popular of these variations is the glam-rock style 70’s version mixed by Mickey Petralia which begins and ends the movie as he walks on stage for his final show.
This had a great reaction from fans and has just been remixed byWilliam Orbit.
The second video single 'Believe' was released at Christmas 2010 and the 'Mama Ballad' in early 2011, one more video single from the album is in the works at the moment.
Working on the film in such detail inspired her to write the songs for a new musical scripted by Tony Thompson. It is now almost fully complete and partly set in some of the same places as in the movie (Covent Garden and Edinburgh Festival). This is being workshopped in NY and London in 2011
She has just played in Los Angeles and London and is scheduled to play New York and Chicago in the near future. For information on her upcoming gigs in London and Paris, watch this space.