ESCALA, the glamorous string quartet that caused a sensation in the final of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent 2008, is to release their first album after being signed up by Simon Cowell.

Neither a manufactured ensemble nor aimed at the saturated crossover market, Escala is the freshest and most innovative sound of the year.

The quartet comprises four sophisticated, highly intelligent girls in their twenties who were dedicated, disciplined and committed musicians who went on to study at London’s most prestigious music colleges and became highly trained professional classical performers. The four became close friends after being recruited as part of a large string section for a UK arena tour by McFly, the boy band, and decided to work together to find a new dimension fusing contemporary music with classical instruments.

Making a break from tradition, the four, violinists Victoria Lyon, aged 25, and Izzy Johnston, aged 24, Chantal Leverton, a viola player aged 25,and Tasya Hodges, a cellist aged 26, are deadly serious about music, play both acoustic and electric instruments and bring stylish high-octane showmanship to their performances.

This formula of fun and integrity – they believe their approach will encourage the young in particular to overcome prejudices about classical instruments – won over the 14 million viewers of Britain’s Got Talent 2008 and led to Simon Cowell instantly signing Escala to Syco Entertainment.

A year ago, Escala was performing at private functions – among them, a wrap party for X Factor and the GQ party at the Cannes film festival. Today, the quartet has been picked to lead BSkyB’s television promotional campaign for the new Premiership football season – in succession to bands such as Simple Minds, Queen and Oasis – and Escala’s first album, for Sony BMG, will make them household names.

Simon Cowell was bowled over by Escala the moment he first heard the girls in the semi-finals of Britain’s Got Talent. He says: “They are completely original and they have got it all – remarkable dedication and training, looks, intelligence, the right attitude to make it big and music that has wide appeal.

With their amazing stage presence as well, they are a very rare talent and I believe there will be a huge interest in them, particularly in America.”

All four girls also have huge bubbly personalities, years of dedicated training behind them and highly unusual backgrounds.

Victoria Lyon is the great-great-grand-daughter of the renowned 19th century opera singer, Jenny Lind, known as “The Swedish Nightingale”. With her five siblings, who were also music scholars, she formed a family sextet that would busk in the streets instead of taking summer jobs before she went to the Royal College of Music and later joined the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as its youngest player.

Izzy Johnston, who gained a full scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music is from an extremely musical family. Her parents run a music school, her brother Guy a cellist, Magnus a violinist and Rupert a Horn player who unfortunately was left severely brain damaged after a car accident in 1997. Her family continues to raise money for Rupert’s charity BIRT. Izzy performed an arrangement of the four seasons with Magnus at the Royal Albert Hall prom in 2005 and was a guest soloist with Michael Ball at his prom in 2007.
Tasya Hodges, who speaks four languages, was born in England but is half Croatian. Passionate about music from an early age, she lived in Croatia and Belgium until she won a scholarship to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School. After that came four years at Guildhall where she won a prize to perform with the London Symphony Orchestra for three months.

Chantal Leverton, who took up music at seven, was a member of the prestigious National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain before she won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. Aged 13, Chantal won The Henry Wood prize for most promising string player from Trinity College of Music. Chantal also played at the Wigmore Hall aged 14 in a masterclass with the Vienna piano trio. Her mother’s side of the family is very artistic which is probably why Chantal has such a love for Music and Art.

Escala’s debut album is to feature the girls’ wide-ranging love of contemporary music. The tracks will include the Chi Mai theme by Ennio Morricone, Craig Armstrong’s haunting Finding Beauty, Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir, Children, by the Swiss Italian DJ Robert Miles, Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars, Live and Let Die by Wings and Escala’s signature tune, Palladio.

The album will be produced by the Grammy Award-winning British musician Trevor Horn who has produced for Cher, Seal, Paul McCartney, Pet Shop Boys, Charlotte Church, Mike Oldfield and many others.

Perhaps Izzy Johnston sums up the quartet best. “We all absolutely love performing and to do it with your closest friends is just the best thing you could imagine. I can only say that this feels how things are meant to be.”