Hot, hot, hot was the feeling inside and out of the Scone High School auditorium on Friday night.
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More than 200 students from across the Upper Hunter joined forces to put on a show like no other for parents, friends and family as part of the grand finale performance of the Upper Hunter Shire and Kia-Ora Youth Music Camp.
Camp coordinator Gillian Miles said it was a lot of hard work, but it was ‘all worth it’ in the end.
“This is the 14th year we have held the event which includes three days of tuition for musicians, vocalists and dancers.
“For the dancers many were first timers, others had performed before but all were challenged to learn the chorography in a short amount of time,” Mrs Miles said.
“The musicians received very intensive tuition over the three days and had the opportunity to work with a conductor and larger ensembles.
“We were very fortunate to have the highly regarded children’s choir conductor, Stephen Leake for the camp who managed to fit us in between working with choirs in the USA and China.
“All of our tutors and conductors were amazing with the concert a wonderful opportunity for students to show parents what they had learned at camp and have the experience of performing in front of a full house.
“Hopefully they made a few friends along the way,” she said.
While the weather outside was hot and humid, inside the nerves and excitement of students back stage was palpable.
The crowd settled into their seats to the dulcet tones of Mikaela Tilse playing Chopin on the piano.
The stage band performed toe tapping renditions of ‘Eye of the Tiger’, ‘Harlem Nocturne’ and ‘Africa’ as a warm act for the hip hop, jazz and junk percussion performers which followed.
Five vocalists hit centre stage to battle it out for the ‘Amazing Voice’ competition with Sarah Dart eventually taking out the competition after much crowd applause and praise from the judges.
Meanwhile the choir were all smiles providing plenty of rounded vowels, angelic faces and singing voices under the masterful strokes (and jokes) of choir conductor, Mr Leake.
One of the most amusing acts of the night, perhaps not intentionally, were the highly charged Aussie Bush dancers that kept the crowd entertained with their partnered dance moves, occasional collisions and contagious laughter.
All the students came together on stage blending music, dance and song for the fiery finale of ‘Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho’ marking the end of a very entertaining evening.