Lila McConigley

In fifth grade, Lila McConigley and her sister, Nina, sang a duet when the Casper Children’s Chorale and the Wyoming State Choir performed Carmina Burana in Avery Fisher Hall. From that night, she set her sights on becoming a performer.

Lila studied music at St. Olaf College, then moved to New York and worked at Sesame Street, as well as singing in a choir at Juilliard and directing a children’s play at Lincoln Center. Greatly inspired by opera, Lila went to Florence to study with renowned Italian tenor Franco Pagliacci for three years.

Next, she was accepted into London’s famous Royal Academy of Music’s post graduate course in Musical Theater. She graduated with distinction and went straight into her West End debut in Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams. She has sung with Sir Elton John, and she is the guest Diva of famous British opera group Tenors UnLimited (performing in January, see page 59), married to their Paul Martin.

Lila played Priya in the premier of Bombay Dreams on Broadway, and she played Tiger Lily and Princess Jasmine in several London productions of Peter Pan and Aladdin. She acted in and sang on the original cast album of Footsteps to the Moon, and sang on the original cast albums of The Railway Children and The Mahabarata.

She is the creator and presenter of The Rainbow’s Nest, a new children’s television show on kindness, currently in development with the BBC.