The Wellington Talent Shows and House Singing Competition

Wellington’s got Talent! Lots of It!

April was our talent month. In one memorable evening in the Seldon Theatre the Senior School rocked to a truly great line-up of musical, comic and dancing talent, interspersed with the four House Singing offerings. Taking the latter first, the standard was very high, testimony to the practice and thought that had gone into each performance. It was always going to be tight between the houses, with Blucher’s Eleanor Rigby, Stanley’s Whatever and a neat medley from the Wellesley all strong contenders for the inaugural House Singing crown. All were eclipsed though by eventual winners Orange, with their exuberant rendition of the timeless rock classic, Eye of the Tiger.

What was remarkable about the Talent competition part of the show was the range of the acts on offer, from classical music, via rock and modern dance to stand-up comedy. The competition kicked off in fine style with Katie Cook’s piano arrangement of the Elton John’s Your Song, sung by Katie and her brother, Jamie, backed by Bill Zhang on cello. Bill returned later to the stage with his cello, to form a trio of outstanding classical performers, alongside James Cho on violin and Yeji Choo on flute. In between the audience was treated to a virtuoso performance on the Chinese flute by Josh Ren. Felix Fowler and Miho Asano showed their agility, timing and movement in a personally choreographed contemporary dance piece, with further dance entertainment from the Chinese dance troupe of Lily Chen, Lily Tian, Joyce Wei, Amy Zhang and Cindy Li, who took the stage by storm with their scintillating Blow routine. Tony Cao and Lincoln Zhang brought the house down with a stand-up comedy routine, Chinese style, before Venus Pan and Mike Yoon concluded the evening with a wonderful piano duet.  Mr Paul Cunningham kindly agreed to judge the competition, awarding the top three spots to Josh, Mike & Venus, and the Chinese dancers.

Nor was the Junior School going to be left out and, in a Talent Competition with a distinctly X Factor style, the standard was once again very high, all the more remarkable considering the age of the performers. The panel of judges was full of praise for entertainment that ranged from piano-playing to poetry-reading, roller-blading, card tricks and Chinese singing. There were no losers. However, in the end, the judges placed the Year 4 trio of Lizzie Elrick (recorder), Nicole Choi (piano) and Louise Tan (drums) in third. Second was Gus Jackson singing My Name is Tallulah, from Bugsy Malone, accompanied by Sofie Axen on piano, while the winners were Christina Su and Sophie Cook from Year 6 with their haunting performance of the Celine Dion classic, My Heart Must Go On, from the film Titanic.