IT’S when you start to read the names on Carly Paoli’s debut album Singing in My Dreams that you begin to realise what a rising star of the classical world she is.

Duets with Andrea Bocelli and Jose Carreras feature and then there is a shared writing credit with none other than Ennio Morricone, with Carly providing the lyrics to turn part of the score he wrote for the movie Cinema Paradiso into a song.

“I think it was a fluke that I put the lyrics down and Ennio loved them and said I could use the song on my album,” she said modestly. “It’s such a huge honour.”

Carly, who is the special guest on Collabro’s current UK tour, said that the album was a dream come true.

“I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve been allowed to make the album I wanted to make,” she said. “Many artists are told what to sing but I have been involved in every aspect of the album.

“It has been a really long process. I performed the songs live before I went in to record them so the studio was sort of the last leg of the journey. It has taken two-and-a-half years to get the physical album in my hand.”

Carly admits that when the album finally arrived, the first thing she did was play it at full blast from start to finish.

“I’m thrilled with it,” she said.

Carly, who studied at the RNCM in Manchester, has followed her dream to be a singer.

“I think I have always known what I wanted to do from age of seven,” she said. “I’ve always been so passionate about music and singing.”

Singing in My Dreams is a highly personal album.

“Some of the songs are from my childhood,” she said. “I’ve featured an Italian pop song which now sounds like an aria but it’s just something I loved when I was out there with my friends.

“I suppose it’s a cocktail of who I am.”

The album has allowed Carly the opportunity to write lyrics for the first time.

“I found it came naturally to me,” she said. “If you are singer you just don’t just hear the music, you imagine where the words are.. It was just having the confidence to go from that to writing lyrics.”

So will her next step be composing?

“I don’t think I could ever compose,” she said. “I’d love to be able to and those people who can I’m really in awe of. It’s magical how they can discover a new melody. There are so many songs in the world and yet they find something new.”

Being on tour with Collabro gives Carly the chance to bring some of the songs from the album to a new audience.

“I’m really looking forward to collaborating with Collabro,” she laughed.

Carly Paoli with Collabro, Blackpool Opera House, Saturday, November 18 and Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, Thursday, November 30