Jasper Gifford Performance statement

Bring Him Home from the musical Les Misérables composed by Claude-Michel Schönberg follows the
protagonist Jean Valjean pleading to God to make sure his daughters love interest, Marius survives the
revolution. Due to this piece being very well known, I have attempted to keep my interpretation as true to the
original west end production whilst still implanting my own personality into it. Not only this piece, but Les
Misérables as a whole represents so much for me as it was the first musical I ever saw, and it ignited my love
for musical theatre. For this performance, I wanted to display the raw emotional power musical theatre can
communicate. With this in mind, I approached the piece from an almost quasi-operatic style due to Les
Misérables’s heavy operatic inspiration and to also help communicate the meaning of the piece. To further
communicate the meaning and emotion of the piece, I took great care to make sure my diction was clear. The
locations where I would breathe were meticulously planned to not disrupt any phrases, to give me the support
required and to have enough breathe to sing through the phrases. Where I would use vibrato was also
considered as to not emphasize the wrong words. Dynamics are a very important part of the piece. For
example, at the start of the piece, I sung the verse softly whereas in the final repetition of the verse at the end
of the piece I chose to sing loudly. This was done because of the orchestration, but more importantly to give
the lyrics more of an emotional depth. The eternity of the piece sits nicely in my chest voice, but for the final
note I specifically go into my falsetto register for multiple reasons. This was done to make the very high note of
A4 easier to sing, but to also contrast with when the note was sung earlier in the piece in my chest voice. The
falsetto register was also used because its quiet nature fits nicely with the light orchestration of the end of the
piece.