May 2011, West London: the phone is answered by Lorraine Millington, half of singer-song writing duo The Portraits. With a fan base that had seen a ten-fold increase since the start of 2010 and a hugely successful string of promotional dates and festival appearances in the UK, France and Ireland throughout the preceding 18 months, perhaps an invitation to the duo to play Glastonbury Festival last summer should have been less of a surprise. However, after screaming, panicking, opening champagne and shouting it from the rooftops, there was the small matter of finding the perfect players to turn The Portraits’ duo into a 5-piece band suitable for the stage that awaited them in Pilton.

Enter stage left three talented musicians who quickly signed themselves up as fully fledged Portraits. There followed six weeks of frantic rehearsal, camaraderie and dress rehearsal concerts to ensure the Glastonbury appearance appeared to come from a band who’d worked closely together since 1976. It was tight. It was muddy. It was hilarious. It was a chance at long last for the Portraits to sing their hearts out about things they care so deeply about: injustice, the forgotten, the heart-broken, and somehow with it, to entertain and amuse. They pulled it off. It was awesome, and where Glastonbury represents the pinnacle of success for the average band, for The Portraits, it was their launch pad.

The Portraits create music based around voices and imagery: poetic lyrics about the world, rich harmonies, ghostly piano and beautiful orchestral sounds. Their 2010 album, The Blushing Of A World In White, was released in June 2010 to rave press reviews and a long waiting list of fans. Now the band are showcasing songs from their next album, with a release planned for June 2012, whose even more impassioned lyrics married to vibrant orchestral textures and choir-like vocal arrangements are a musical exclamation mark following the inequalities our lives are all bearing witness to both in far flung places that can seem so many moons away and much closer to home.

2011 ended with the group receiving the Best International Artist award from Radio Crystal Blue.

From their roots playing as an acoustic duo (piano, guitar, 2 voices) the band have exploded into an energetic, sparkling full band, adding to the above violin, cello, bodhran and third vocalist, whose live performances leave audiences moved to laughter and tears in equal measure.

***BEST INTERNATIONAL ARTIST 2011***
RADIO CRYSTAL BLUE

“An utterly entrancing live act… a sound that is gloriously uplifting and truly magical”
ANDY ROPEK, BLACKHEATH HALLS, LONDON

“Beautiful – I feel coloured”
SUE MARCHANT, BBC

“The Portraits are Grammy worthy.”
IAE MAGAZINE

“One of the most unique and haunting acts who write pop songs that are intelligent, multi-faceted and inordinately above the pop throng.”
WILDY’S WORLD