By Cassy Fiano<\/p>\n
Famed Irish singer Lisa Kelly helped take the world by storm. The Dublin native was the lead female vocalist for Riverdance, a position she held for years before being asked to join Celtic Woman. As a founding member, she helped catapult the group to international fame and stardom.<\/span><\/p>\n But when she decided that her career touring with Celtic Woman would end, she wanted to settle down in the United States. She and her husband chose Peachtree City, Georgia as the perfect place to raise their family, and it was there that they decided to open the Lisa Kelly Voice Academy.<\/span><\/p>\n Kelly specializes in performance-based classical training. While she originally expected to be teaching mostly children, the academy has had a varied age group taking lessons. When the time came to open a second voice academy, it was while on vacation that Kelly found the perfect spot: Ponte Vedra Beach. <\/span><\/p>\n I think because I toured so much with Celtic Woman, and I was singing the same songs over and over again, I\u2019ve found that my favorite things to perform are songs that I\u2019ve never ever sung before. Recently I sang \u201cWhen I Fall In Love\u201d in a concert and I just fell in love with it. So if I\u2019m asked this week, what my favorite song to sing is, it would probably be that.<\/span><\/p>\n I think my favorite part about performing is the end part of it. I find that I get super nervous about it, and I really want to be good every time. But after you get through the first few lines of each song, and you warm up, you look out into an audience and you see the way they embrace you, or the way you\u2019ve touched one of their lives. I think that\u2019s probably the best thing for me. <\/span><\/p>\n I think it\u2019s an escape. And there\u2019s so many escapes people can use in their lives these days, but I think music is extremely personal. And I try to instill that in everybody that I teach. Just because you think you\u2019re amazing, doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re the best performer. Or just because you have the best voice, it doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019re the best singer there. It\u2019s how people react to you or what they feel when they listen to you. It\u2019s how you tell your story. I think that\u2019s often forgotten by people. <\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve played the most amazing venues, I\u2019ve seen the great cities. But every performance is so different. The one that kind of touched my heart the most was probably the White House lighting of the Christmas tree. That was about two years ago. That was an amazing moment that was just so unreal. Being an Irish girl, standing in the White House with the president beside me and talking to me, like it\u2019s totally normal, it kind of threw me. <\/span><\/p>\n I am a super lucky girl, that I have a huge group of family and friends. They pushed me to be better and better every day. I would certainly look to my mum and dad, who have been amazing; they\u2019ve done so much for me. Professionally, I loved Karen Carpenter growing up. I only had the one record growing up, and it was the Carpenters; I literally spent hours and hours just sitting and listening to the Carpenters. She\u2019s one of the few singers that you can just hear the raw emotion when she sings; it\u2019s just a really natural, heartfelt kind of singing. <\/span><\/p>\n Photo courtesy Lisa Kelly<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Cassy Fiano Famed Irish singer Lisa Kelly helped take the world by storm. The Dublin native was the lead female vocalist for Riverdance, a position she held for years before being asked to join Celtic Woman. As a founding member, she helped catapult the group to international fame and stardom. But when she decided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10],"class_list":{"0":"post-613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ponte-vedra","8":"tag-get-to-know"},"yoast_head":"\n\n
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