Jo herself sang an Adele song, Set Fire to the Rain at the end, an interesting upbeat departure from the selection of ballads she has sung on previous years. Awards were presented to Helena Clarke (Effort Award), Ellie Macdonald (Achievement Award and Long Note Award) and to Milly McCarron for Student of the Year 2011. Special mentions were also given to Paige Hackworth, Mae Frischauer & Harry Lacey for exceptional progress this year.

The show takes an unbelievable amount of preparation to put on but I think we can all agree it’s worth it. One of the great things about the shows is, for me, as a relative outsider to Jo’s students, I get to see the progress they make over the years. This year, there were several students who were in last year’s show who have either grown up that bit more or grown as performers. The shows are also a great oppotunity for new students who attend the show to see some sort of end result to singing lessons and it helps them visualise themselves performing on that stage someday and it was a great feeling to see those who attended last year’s show show as an audience member to be giving their all on stage as a performer this year.

Next year, as part of out continuous improvements to the show, we’re thinking of a change from the Angel Centre but will let you know details as and when we know them.

The venue was the Spa Hotel in Tunbridge Wells and the room was easy enough to load in to and had good acoustics too. It also made the afternoon more fun when the staff were friendly too. This particular time, not only did a waiter help me out with my equipment,  I also received the compliment “You sing lovely, much better than last night’s one” from him!

http://www.spahotel.co.uk/