{"id":15025,"date":"2022-05-04T17:59:48","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T15:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/?p=166288"},"modified":"2022-05-04T18:11:12","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T16:11:12","slug":"michelle-dockerys-shares-her-favourite-music","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/michelle-dockerys-shares-her-favourite-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Dockery\u2019s shares her favourite music"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Freya Parr\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 04 May 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Michelle Dockery is best known for her longstanding role as Lady Mary Crawley in the ITV period drama Downton Abbey<\/i>, which she has reprised for the show\u2019s subsequent films. A trained singer as well as a stage and screen actor, Dockery has performed with bands and as a solo artist on and off over the years. She has recently teamed up with fellow Downton Abbey<\/i> actor Michael Fox to form a folk duo known as Michael and Michelle. Together, they released their debut EP, The Watching Silence<\/i>, out now on Decca Records.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\nHere she chats about the music that has influenced her<\/p>\n\u201cH<\/span>aving played Lady Mary,<\/i> you\u2019d think I\u2019d be sick of <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/guide-music-downton-abbey\/"\">Downton Abbey<\/i>\u2019s theme tune<\/a> <\/strong>but I\u2019m not, surprisingly. I even play it on the <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/who-invented-the-piano\/"\">piano<\/a><\/strong>, which people find hilarious \u2013 they see it as me breaking into my own theme tune. The Downton Abbey<\/i> composer <\/span>John Lunn <\/span>is a complete genius \u2013the way he creates a theme tune with such a recognisable hook absolutely fascinates me. As soon as the music begins, you can see the castle and the characters in your mind\u2019s eye.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cSoundtracks have always been a big obsession for me, as I wanted to be an actor from a really young age. If a film really struck me, I always wanted to dive into its soundtrack. I had the double cassette of the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann\u2019s Romeo + Juliet,<\/i> which featured all the tracks by various different artists as well as all the original music used in the background of the film written by Nellee Hooper, Craig Armstrong and Marius de Vries.\u00a0 <\/span>Every time I listened to the soundtrack, it was as though I was <\/i>in <\/i>the film. <\/span><\/p>\n\u201cIf I was ever on Radio 4\u2019s <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/what-is-the-desert-island-discs-theme-tune\/"\">Desert Island Discs<\/i><\/a><\/strong>, my choices would be really eclectic. I grew up on Motown, but as I entered my teenage years I became more influenced by folk music. I was introduced to<\/span> Joni Mitchell <\/span>when I was about 14 and learnt to play River <\/i>on the piano. I still don\u2019t know if the chords were even correct. I remember going to a restaurant and my family made me get up and play it on the piano there, which must have been such a funny image. There\u2019s something jarring about seeing someone so young singing such a mature song. I was a 14 year-old who hadn\u2019t learnt anything about life, but was singing a song like River<\/i>, which is all about the complexities of a heart-breaking relationship. Joni Mitchell is someone that stays with you throughout the different stages of your entire life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWhen I was younger, my sister and I were always harmonising to the music we heard. I think that\u2019s why Michael Fox and I have formed our new folk duo. I\u2019ve always loved that kind of unison singing. It was around this time that Oasis influenced everything for me: how I dressed and who I hung out with. Their songs were some of the first I played on the guitar when I was going through an indie-grunge phase as a teenager.\u00a0 <\/span>I went to a brilliant stage school when I was growing up and very nearly went down the musical theatre route. I auditioned for a few musicals but wasn\u2019t successful, which actually turned out to be pretty fortunate, because my career could have taken a very different direction. I was always much more disciplined as an actor than as a singer or dancer. That said, the <\/span>music of <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/articles\/west-side-story-our-guide-to-bernsteins-original-1957-musical\/"\">West Side Story<\/a><\/strong>, Les Mis\u00e9rables<\/i> and <\/i><\/span>Guys and Dolls <\/i>have always stayed with me, because I sang so many of those songs and learnt dance routines from them. <\/span><\/p>\n\u201cClassical music has always been part of my life. I remember first hearing <\/span><a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/composers\/ralph-vaughan-williams\/"\">Vaughan Williams<\/span><\/a><\/strong>\u2019s <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/vaughan-williamss-fantasia-on-a-theme-of-thomas-tallis\/"\">Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis <\/i><\/a><\/strong>when I was listening to Classic FM while studying for my GCSEs and was completely sucked in by it. If I\u2019m learning lines for an acting role, I always turn to piano music to help me concentrate. The first thing I listen to in the morning and when I\u2019m driving is <a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/ludovico-einaudi\/"\">Ludovico Einaudi<\/a><\/strong>. Music plays a big part in my acting career, and I often build and create playlists to help me tap into the character I\u2019m portraying. <\/span><\/p>\nThere are certain pieces of music that seem to represent the course of an entire life through their narrative. <\/span>Vaughan Williams<\/span>\u2019s<a href=\""https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/four-of-the-best-recordings-of-vaughan-williamss-the-lark-ascending\/"\"> The Lark Ascending <\/i><\/a><\/strong>is one such piece that I\u2019ll never tire of. It takes you through birth, adolescence and adulthood within the space of 15 minutes or so.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nInterview by Freya Parr<\/i><\/span><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Freya Parr Published: Wednesday, 04 May 2022 at 12:00 am Michelle Dockery is best known for her longstanding role as Lady Mary Crawley in the ITV period drama Downton Abbey, which she has reprised for the show\u2019s subsequent films. A trained singer as well as a stage and screen actor, Dockery has performed with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":15026,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/05\/michelle-dockerys-shares-her-favourite-music.jpg",1024,683,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/05\/michelle-dockerys-shares-her-favourite-music-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/05\/michelle-dockerys-shares-her-favourite-music-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/05\/michelle-dockerys-shares-her-favourite-music-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/05\/michelle-dockerys-shares-her-favourite-music.jpg",800,534,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/05\/michelle-dockerys-shares-her-favourite-music.jpg",1024,683,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2022\/05\/michelle-dockerys-shares-her-favourite-music.jpg",1024,683,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Freya Parr Published: Wednesday, 04 May 2022 at 12:00 am Michelle Dockery is best known for her longstanding role as Lady Mary Crawley in the ITV period drama Downton Abbey, which she has reprised for the show\u2019s subsequent films. A trained singer as well as a stage and screen actor, Dockery has performed with…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/15025"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}