Annie Skates

As a vocal coach, Annie Skates has worked on numerous films including ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (coaching Rami Malek and Gwilym Lee), ‘Mamma Mia – Here We Go Again!’ (Lily James), ‘A Bigger Splash’ (Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson), ‘Last Christmas’ (Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding), ‘So Much Love’ (Gemma Arterton), ‘Eurovision’ (Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams), ‘Cinderella’ (Nicholas Galitzine), ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ (Naomi Ackie), ‘I Used to be Famous’ (Ed Skrein), ‘The Marvels’ (Brie Larson, Park Seo-joon) and ‘Disenchanted’ (Amy Adams, Gabriella Baldacchino). For TV she has coached for Simon Cowell’s team on ‘The X Factor’, and on ‘The Voice Kids’, ‘Popstars’, ‘Celebrity Stars in Their Eyes’ and ‘This is My Moment’. She coached Robbie Williams for his album ‘The Heavy Entertainment Show’. She has acted as vocal consultant to Atomic Kitten and Hear’say and has been invited to coach Mis-teeq, The Kaiser Chiefs and the Darkness. For the BBC she coached the ‘Little Robots’ voice-over actors including Lenny Henry and Mel and Sue and for ITV she coached the children’s choir for the final of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. She helped TV and radio presenters and newsreaders to perform ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Dancing Queen’, both for Children in Need. Annie coached the ‘Wishes’ children for the Rays of Sunshine charity single, ‘Bring Me Sunshine’ and conducted them at Wembley Arena for their charity gala. She taught the choir for The Big Knit charity Christmas single for Help The Aged and has led workshops for the Musical Theatre For Youth charity in Ireland.

TV and radio work as a singer includes appearing as guest artist on the ‘Mike Doyle’ series for BBC Wales and on ‘The Lyrics Game’ for Presentable Productions. Annie acted as head judge on the BBC talent shows ‘Just Up Your Street’ and ‘The Voice of Musical Theatre’. She has performed on many other shows including ‘The Paul O’Grady Show’, ‘Parkinson’, ‘The Graham Norton Show’, ‘An Audience With Celine Dion’, ‘The Classical Brits’, ‘Proms in the Park’ and ‘Thank You For The Music’ in Hyde Park.

Annie has written and sung backing vocals for TV shows such as ‘The X Factor’, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, ‘Over the Rainbow’, ‘I’d Do Anything’, ‘How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria’, ‘Any Dream Will Do’, ‘Superstar’ and ‘Grease Is The Word’. She arranged vocals for ‘Last Choir Standing’ (UK), ‘America’s Got Talent’, ‘You’re The Ones That We Want’ (USA), and ‘Finding Maria’ (Canada). Other vocal arranging work can be heard on recordings for Leona Lewis, Alexandra Burke, Michael Ball and Rhydian.

Annie has worked live and in the recording studio with George Michael, Madonna, Robbie Williams, The Jacksons, Beyonce, Elton John, Kylie Minogue, Lionel Richie, Annie Lennox, The Bee Gees, LeAnn Rimes, Ronan Keating, Gloria Estefan, Will Young, Diana Ross, Gary Barlow, Al Jarreau, Lesley Garrett and Jose Carreras. 

She has sung in the West End shows ‘Cats’, ‘Grease’ and ‘Hair’ and provides vocals for film soundtracks including ‘Phantom of the Opera’, ‘Evita’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Aladdin’, ‘Mamma Mia – Here we Go Again’, ‘Nine’, ‘Entrapment’, ‘Last Christmas’ and ‘Cinderella’. Commercials include T-Mobile, McDonalds, Capital Radio and Just Eat.