I caught the train to Eastwood with Marcus Kitchen, my piano accompanist, and Ross Wilson a 3rd Year RCS Classical guitarist who was also performing with me at the event. We were met at the station by Rob Wilkinson from the Eastwood Rotary Club ( Link ) who then drove us to the venue.
We arrived at 5:30pm allowing us plenty of time to practise and prepare for a 7:30pm performance. It was a good crowd, filling the venue, I was excited as I always am just before a performance. I followed a group of fabulous dancers on to the stage and introduced my first song when I caught sight of Marcus out of the side of my eye signalling that he had a problem with the piano. This was the moment when I wished I was a stand-up comedienne with a repertoire of jokes or light hearted stories to fill the void, but I am a singer 🙂 so to fill the silence I explained about the second song I was going to perform and what it was about. With fingers crossed I hoped that the piano could be quickly resolved. A quick glance to Marcus and I could see that the problem still wasn’t fixed, so there was nothing else I could think of but to introduce a folk song ‘O Waly Waly’, it wasn’t in my program for the night but at least I could sing it unaccompanied. Phew, it went down well and I’d managed to find the right key, well at least Marcus kindly told me I did 🙂
I could breathe again, the piano was working so I sang “O Mio Babbino Caro”, “Do Not Go My Love” and “Widmung” to conclude my first set. In the second half of the evening, with the piano now working beautifully I sang “Per La Gloria D’Adorarvi, “Danny Boy” and I finished my performance with “Art Is Calling For Me” from the comic opera “The Enchantress”. It was a lovely evening and the Rotary Club did a great job raising funds for important local charities.
Last year the Eastwood Rotary annual variety show raised £2,500 and hopefully last Saturdays showcase will do even better this year.
