Kenny McColl
Kenneth McColl is a freelance multi-instrumentalist musician, songwriter, composer, musical director, artistic director and actor.
Kenneth first picked up a guitar at age 5 and, if you believed his grandmother, he was singing way before that! He was around 7 years old when he first stepped on to a stage, playing guitar in one class performance then running off to play a lead role in the school's main production. There was a pattern here that was to follow him all the way to adulthood and professional life.
There followed the well trodden path of grade exams and formal musical study, while also taking part in many varied performance opportunities. These included playing rhythm guitar in his school's regional big band in 1990 and performing in productions with the local Clydebank Youth Theatre. (During this time he was also taught by Adrian Finnerty, now a fellow SMC member.)
As a child of modern language teachers – and nephew of multilingual musician Jimmy Reilly – Kenny grew up in a multicultural atmosphere where it was commonplace to hear music played in any of a variety of different languages. He studied languages at the University of Strathclyde, during which time he spent his 3rd year studying in Zaragoza, Spain. He had always had a longstanding connection with the music and rhythms of latin music but it was during this time that he completely fell in love, a love that would be developed much later. (He speaks both French and Spanish fluently and would go on to eventually write lyrics in Spanish that appear on his latest album. )
After graduating with a BA (Hons) in 1996, he wrote, played guitar and sang backing vocals for Perfectly Legal, a band he had formed with close friends at university. After the band split in 1999, Kenny began to develop his style as a solo singer/songwriter.
From 2000 to 2004 he performed around Glasgow's then burgeoning coffee shop circuit, going on to present and promote a variety of cabaret events including Costa Culture at Costa Coffee, Cabaret in the Cafe at Borders Bookstore and the Laid Back Jam Sessions at Tchai Ovna in the city's west end.
Returning to education in 2002, he graduated with an HND in Acting and Performance in 2004. Kenneth's acting credits include Bodyguard in Dani's House (CBBC), Fou Fou in Cinderella (Platform Arts), Dad in A Calm Sea Sways (Reverie Films), Thomas Huxley in Science Scams (Clarity Productions for Channel 4) and Rab in Lorraine Kelly's DNA Diaries (Scotttish Media Group). He also played and sang the part of William Wallace in Hopscotch Theatre's Loyal Wallace Royal Bruce, while also taking charge of all musical matters on tour.
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He is an experienced artistic and musical director with his credits including ID Parade (Big Teeth Productions), The Rise and Fall of Deacon Brodie (Citadel Arts at Edinburgh Fringe) and The Lion King (Shoogalie Road Productions).
In 2010 he was a member of a team of artists that travelled to Blantyre, Malawi, to lead a week's intensive training for teachers and childcare professionals in one of Africa's poorest countries.
Then in 2016, Kenneth had the opportunity to travel to Shijiazhuang, China, to work under Ian Kellgren (Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool Playhouse) with the UKCI. The brainchild of Kellgren and several senior staff members from Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA), Shua was a multi-school project performed at a high professional standard and the biggest production undertaken so far by the UKCI. As one of 4 pairs placed in schools across China, he worked with a choreographer to audition, teach and prepare children for the final production in the Beijing Folk Theatre, working from April to November 2016. He was also made assistant to Musical Director Ross Leadbeater (Only Men Aloud, Classical Brit Awards, Gay's the Word) for the final production.
Kenny returned home, intent on further study in music, enrolling at the University of the West of Scotland, to study songwriting under David Scott (Pearlfishers, BBC Scotland). He graduated in July 2020 with an MA in Music (Songwriting), which coincided with his first full album release on Bandcamp, Welcome to the Contents of My Head. Though primarily a guitarist and singer, he is almost as comfortable with a bass guitar, conga drums or sitting at a piano so as well as writing or co-writing all the songs, he wrote, arranged and performed most of the instrument parts as well.
The album is a collection of soulful pop songs, exploring many of Kenny's own feelings and emotions as, like many, he uses songwriting to process how he sees the world around him. From the surf pop Contents to the gospel infused Serenity and latin jazz Into the Dream, this album may cross genres but it is held together well by the writer's own clearly defined style.
He has since written music for A Whirl Round the Gaiety (Gaiety Theatre), as well as scoring short films A New Dawn (LCM Productions), Terms and Conditions and Positively Negative (both Sly Bacon Productions).
Like many musicians, Kenny turned to the internet to post both live and pre-recorded performances during the recent pandemic lockdown. He also arranged and developed the Macedonian folk tune Sharmountain Lullaby for Pavlina Ltd, a New York based production company.
He continues to write both songs and instrumental works, and looks forward to returning to the stage in front of a live audience once again.
