Members of Burnham-On-Sea’s Siobhan Johnson Singers and Burnham Youth Choir are celebrating after winning at the Weston Festival.
Burnham Youth Choir performed their unique ‘Andrew Lloyd Webber’ mash-up medley and fully entertained the audience with 24 edited songs which were all woven and technically modulated together. They won the class with a very high mark of distinction of 89.
They were up against a much older, larger and fantastically technical choir, The Kings Choir, from King’s of Wessex School who also performed superbly.
Hannah Murdoch, from King Alfred School in Highbridge and Leah Norton from Brent Knoll School gained a well-deserved silver medal with their entertaining, tightly choreographed and pitch-perfect duet of ‘Consider Yourself’ from ‘Oliver.’
Hannah then continued to win a third place in the same class in her second duet with Rowan Mobsby-Frost. Rowan went on to sing well in her solo classes.
Hannah continued her success in the solo classes, winning a further gold medal in her musical theatre class as she impressed the adjudicator with a truly technically demanding song of ‘Pulled’ from The Adams Family with spot-on syncopation and a silver medal with her folk song.
She also managed to bring the audience to tears, including several children, as she sang the most beautiful and emotional ‘Own Choice’ song. This was supported by the amazing ambience and acoustics of performing in a large church.
“As a teacher that is the first time I have ever witnessed so many people in tears, especially children, and that is very hard to achieve as a performer in bringing pure emotion to an audience,” said Siobhan.
Emily Thomas performed very well and came in a close second place, winning a silver medal in a very high standard of class with her performance of ‘Food, Glorious Food’ from ‘Oliver.’ Furthermore, this was Emily’s first appearance at Weston Festival.
“Grace Holman also sang her heart out, with her angelic voice, gaining high marks and receiving great feedback in her first ever Weston Festival,” added Siobhan.
“Leah Norton also sang her heart out as usual with her such powerful voice, in her solo classes, even though she was struggling with a bad cold, but professionally managed to continue in the most mature way at such a young age, with an irritating spasm of coughing and spluttering and most of all the annoying tickle and frog in her throat!”
“The standard at Weston festival was the highest I have ever seen in all the many years I have been participating, and I am immensely proud of all my singers for competing against such high competition as they represented the Burnham-On-Sea area so well.”
“I would also like to thank the Weston Festival committee for making us all feel so welcome and all the parents and carers of my pupils for their fantastic support and encouragement.”
“Most of all, I would like to say a big thank you and well done to all my pupils who have all worked so, so hard individually and as a group this year in rehearsals, totally excelling themselves with their most successful year long run at festivals, gaining the most remarkable marks, feedback and hoard of medals including several performance marks of ’90’ and ‘Honours’.”
Pictured: Burnham Youth Choir, Emily Thomas, and Hannah Murdoch
