About Me    

Born in London, Shirlie was three when her family moved to Wales and ten when she first performed solo on the stage at junior school. She studied classical piano for some years and then classical singing with a member of the Welsh National Opera, until her father bought her her first acoustic guitar. Aged fifteen, during the school holidays Shirlie ran away to London, playing in folk clubs alongside the then unknown Paul Simon and Al Stewart. She later graduated from Warwick University with a BA (Hons) in English and European Literature and formed the rock band Children with fellow-student and Flying Picket-to-be Rick Lloyd, turning professional when they both graduated.

The mid-seventies saw her touring America and Europe for three years with cult British rock band Ray Davies and The Kinks in their concept musicals ‘Preservation’, ‘A Soap Opera’ and ‘Schoolboys in Disgrace.’ She later joined the Gordon Giltrap Band to feature as a unique singer, using her high vocal range as an instrument in amongst Giltrap’s classical rock music and sang on many studio sessions with artists such as David Gilmore, Mike Oldfield, Ultravox, Ian Gillan, Suzi Quatro and Hot Chocolate.

New horizons beckoned in the eighties when she began to write for the musical stage, and British impresario Bill Kenwright commissioned and produced her original shows  ‘Jeanne’ (Joan of Arc   - the first rock opera to be staged at Sadlers Wells Theatre in London), ‘Tallulah Who?’ (co-written with Suzi Quatro and Willie Rushton), two children’s shows ‘Paddington Bear’s Magical Musical’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ plus the highly-successful ‘Roy Orbison Story’ (nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Musical); while other productions which Shirlie wrote  included ‘Counterpoint’ (The Gatehouse London), the Old Testament Musical ‘AD/BC’ (co-written with John Kane) at Lafayette University, Pennsylvania, music and lyrics for Sue Townsend’s play ‘Bazaar and Rummage’, and books, music and lyrics for Richard Llewellyn’s famous Welsh novel ‘How Green Was My Valley.’ Shirlie’s theatre performances also included Fruma Sarah in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ with Topol, Musetta in an international cast production of ‘La Boheme’ at the Kammer Oper in Vienna, on tour as the Narrator in ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’ and Prison Office Meg Jackson in ‘Prisoner Cell Block H’ and all six wives in ‘The Complete Wives of Henry VIII’ at the Edinburgh Festival.

In the nineteen nineties Shirlie’s path changed again. She made the decision to leave the world of theatre and rock music for a new direction and dedicate her writing and singing to lift, relax and inspire people in whatever way she could. This path took her to the Republic of Slovenia where she is now well-known for the healing, uplifting power of her voice and her concerts and sound workshops. She has now recorded seven cds of her own material: Angels of Sound, Endless Love, Simply Slovenia/The Vanishing Lake, The Path of Daring, Skydancer and Raising Your Vibration. Her book ‘Sound Healing’ (Piatkus Books) was translated into Slovene and Hungarian and her project with Slovene photographer Bogdan Kladnik, the book/cd ‘Simply Slovenia’ has been hailed as ‘one of the best books on Slovenia in the past ten years.’

Educational and environmental projects Shirlie has worked on include The Read It Song for Leeds Education 2000, the racial awareness song Underneath the Skin for the Elmete InterSchools Project, Yorkshire, the Light a Candle peace song performed by Mount Gilbert Community College Belfast, Let Them Live theme song for Romanian orphans, performed by Maria Friedman at the London Palladium ‘Kids at Heart’, The Slovenian radio air play hit ‘Kako Lepo’ environmental song with children, ‘Please Save The Miracle of Trees’ sung as a duet with Martin Shaw and presented to The Woodland Trust, The Miracle of Trees poetry and narration stage presentation at Olympia 2000 Festival Earls Court with Brian Protheroe and Nicolas Clay (which was translated into Slovene and performed in Ljubljana for the President and Slovene Department of Environment), and The Ozone Rap Royal Family Rappers comedy song for Spitting Image.

Shirlie has led workshops in England, Australia, Malta, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Italy, Croatia and Slovenia and is filled with gratitude that she able to continue to write, travel, perform and sing her healing tones wherever she is invited in the world.