I’ve just come back from accompanying a very talented young singer, Bronte Turpin, at a charity concert. We did ‘Listen’ and she also sang with a jazz band. She and two others there, I think all from Aranmore Catholic College, are ‘ones to watch’ as they take their singing further. In the years to come you can say you first heard about them here: Bronte Turpin, Caterina Sullivan and Barzley Paculanang.

Barzley had a great jazzy accompaniment for My Foolish Heart from an Aranmore music teacher, Russell Holmes. Caterina (14yo) accompanied herself in one number, quite an achievement (and something I’ve not really mastered myself).

The whole thing was masterfully MC’d by ABC Radio’s Verity James, who donated her time to help raise funds to restore St Mary’s Catholic Parish church in Leederville. They’re aiming at $1 million and so far they’ve raised about $700,000 by various means!

I’ve been to or participated in a great many similar events and I have to say this was one of the best. The sheer confidence of the performers (mostly school students) was obvious, and it made a big difference to their performances. They must have some good teachers.

(Apologies to the many other excellent student performers, I didn’t get everyone’s name and I didn’t want to do a formal review of the whole event.)