Concert at the Masonic

Hey blog world! As you all know I’m a huge supporter of Newfoundland’s local arts scene. I go out to pretty much every musical staged here and love seeing local artists in concert. We have an abondance of local talent on the rock! The veterans of the NL entertainment scene like Kelly-Ann Evans , Peter Halley and Keith Power are all wonderful people but we also have a lot of wonderful up and comers too. Today I got to take in a concert at the Masonic Temple that showcased some of our up and coming talent and I was blown away by what I saw!

I’ve been a voice student of Peter’s since September and am absolutely loving our lessons! He’s the best voice teacher I’ve had! Each year he enters some of his students into the Kiwanis Music Festival. I wasn’t entered in because we didn’t really have anything ready. On Wednesday he said that he would be having a concert today for his students who were doing the festival and that even though I wasn’t going to be in it I could perform something if I wanted to. Of course I did! I never pass up the chance to perform! We’d been working on “The Tree” from “The Me Nobody Knows” since the beginnig of our lessons so we thought that would be the best song for me to do.

When I arrived at the Temple I was really excited to be participating in my first recital as a student of Peter’s! Unfortunately that excitement quickly turned into overwhelming nervousness. For those of you who don’t know, due to my heightened sense of hearing that came as a package deal with my Aspergers I’m a chronic globophobe (I’m petrified of balloons.) I have a nervous breakdown when I’m around them! As my luck would have it when I entered the temple there were a few boys blowing up balloons and hanging them up in the lobby. My heart began to race and even though I knew I would be in the Grand Room a little ways away from them just knowing there were balloons in the building made me really nervous. I even shook a bit when I sat down! I did all I could to try and calm myself because I did not want my globophobia episode to interfere with my performance. It took a while but eventually I was calm again.

My excitedness returned when the show started! I couldn’t wait to hear all the songs and sing one myself! Jack White was the first performer in the show because he had to leave soon to go to a turkey dinner. I can’t remember what grade he said he was in but he looked very young. I’d say he’s maybe 8 or 9. He sang “Old Brown’s Daughter“. I thought he was really cute! His 2nd performance later on of “Chim Chim Cheree” from Mary Poppins was really cute too. He was a great singer and actor. His turkey dinner was well deserved!

Lauren Hayward performed her two festival pieces in between Jack’s songs. She did “I Know Things Now” from “Into The Woods” and “Somewhere That’s Green” from “Little Shop of Horrors”. I really enjoyed both her pieces. When she sang “I Know Things Now” I thought she sounded like Lila Crawford (the girl who played red riding hood in the movie)! “Somewhere That’s Green” was beautiful. It made me feel bad for the character she was playing. She wants Seymour and the whole song is about what she dreams her life will be like with him (she’ll cook like Betty Crocker, there will be plastic on the furniture, they’ll eat frozen dinners and go to bed at 9:15) but she’s stuck with a semi sadist who has blackened her eye and broken her arm. Poor thing!

Astounding 13 year old local actor Nicolas Keough never fails to impress me. This afternoon was no exception. He got up to sing his concert group (three songs, a baroque song, german leid and a third one of his choice.) The first song he sang was really nice. I was really impressed with the german leid that he sang. It must have been difficult learning to pronounce all those words! His third song “The Second Minuet” was beautiful! It was a lovely story of how an elderly couple met each other years ago and how they danced together to the second minuet. It was such a pretty song. I was holding back tears!

Ian Carroll who I think is close to or is the same age as Nicolas is a fabulous performer as well. I’d heard him sing on a few occasions and think he’s a lovely singer. I was looking forward to hearing him today. I thought his concert group was impressive as well. My favorite out of the three that he sang was his last one. “Christopher Robin Is Saying His Prayers“. I thought it was a very sweet song. I was quite surprised though that there was no mention of Pooh Bear .

I can’t remember her partner’s name but Lauren did a fantastic duet of “Just A Couple A Sisters” from “Nunsense”. It was hillarious! I really liked when they were listing off a bunch of Mary’s really fast and soon Reverend Mother (I think that was the characters name) got out of breath!

Soon it was my turn to go up. I introduced myself, told the audience what school I went to and said my favorite subject was writing, then Peter made my day by plugging my blog!!! I thought it was really nice of him to do that. “The Tree” is a wonderful song that makes me happy and I was very happy to be on stage singing it. I thought I did a very good job and was proud of myself.

After my performance there were a lot more fabulous musical theater songs! Ian sang “I, Huckleberry, Me” from “Big River”. It was a really catchy song that managed to get itself stuck in my head! I’m probably going to be humming that for a week now LOL! I liked Ian’s costume for this song. He wore overalls, a straw hat and was barefoot. He looked great!

Nicolas did a few more musical theater pieces as well. One of which was “The Kings New Clothes”. It was a very cute and very funny telling of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Nicolas had me cracking up! I almost cried from laughing! His other piece was a duet. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten his partners name as well. They sang “Kids” from “Bye Bye Birdie”. They were dressed as elderly people! I loved both of their costumes. I also really liked their schtick as they headed onto the stage. They were both full of aches and pains and were bickering all the way. It was so funny! Their song was funny too!

Lauren did a superb rendition of “Adelaide’s Lament” from “Guys and Dolls”. It’s one of my favorite showtunes! I was thrilled that she would be performing it! She was a perfect Adelaide. She even had the New York accent down pat! This was my favorite performance of the show.

We got to hear some more Newfoundland music as well. Ian sang “St. John’s Girl”. He’s a little too young to be going downtown but nevertheless he did and he got into quite a mess! He met a girl that played the angel but was really a money grubbing little shagger. He spent all his money on her and she stole a few of his belongings! I thought this was a terriffic performance. Ian has great comedic timing and stage presence.

The final song of the show was sung by Lauren. She sang “He’s A Part Of Me” by Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellers. It was such a beautiful song and Lauren sang it with so much emotion. It made me cry! I thought it was a nice way to end off the show.

I was really impressed by all the performers in the show today. You all did a phenominal job today and I’m certain you’ll all be phenominal in the festival! Break legs and good luck!

Leah