Strawberry Tea At St. Mary's

Kicking off the entertainment was the talented Emmanuel Ogwuche on the keyboard, playing varied hits such as ‘’Hit the Road Jack’’ by Ray Charles and the theme song of the award-winning movie How to Train your Dragon.Following Emmanuel’s performance was Les Guns, the Miltoncross Academy junior band. Les Guns’ performances included Zombie by the Irish band The Cranberries and the world-famous hit Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley. Finishing up the Band segment was Miltoncross’ senior band Lexi and the Heartstrings performing Bill Withers’ Lean on Me and Fleetwood Mac’s Go Your Own Way.

After a quick intermission, the performers were now ready for the Miltoncross Show Team’s segment.The Show Team sang Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling. The first solo of the day was performed by Anaelle - a member of the Music Department’s Frontline group - and her first song of the afternoon: Stay. Next was another solo, this time by Show Team’s Lennox, who performed the UK’s 2021 Eurovision Entry I Wrote a Song by Mae Muller. Following this amazing performance was a rendition of It Could Be Today from Shrek: The Musical, performed by the Show Team’s very own vocal director and school singing teacher Miss Amy Bennett, supported by Frontline member Lizzie Brown and newly-joined Show Team member Elexis Sim. Coming up after that magical performance was another remarkable performance by Year 10 Frontline member Phoebe Ferreira singing The Wizard and I from the award winning West-End Musical Wicked

Following Phoebe’s spellbinding performance, the Show Team were ready for their next group performance - this time, it was Pharrell Williams’ famous hit Happy. The following solos were Burn from the musical Hamilton performed by Freya Davies, If Only from the Disney movie Descendants performed by Frontline member Divine and Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 hit Dreams (performed by me!). Up next was another performance by Anaelle - this time with In the Stars by Benson Boone.

The crowds were raring to go after these impressive solos, and were excited for another group performance - in this case, it was a medley of songs from the internationally famous children’s film Frozen featuring Let it Go, Love Is An Open Door and Do You Want To Build A Snowman?

After the rousing finish of this collection of world-famous songs, the solos were ready to recontinue. However, I was tasked with greeting and interviewing the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Portsmouth, who had decided to attend the concert. It resulted in a relatively interesting interview, with the Lord Mayor expressing the need for more youth music opportunities within the city’s schools. We strongly hope that they return for our future concerts.

While I was busy talking with the Lord Mayor, 2 of Show Team’s newer members, Success Teke and Elizabeth Oladimeji, were singing a collection of songs by Nigerian singer-songwriter CKay and were followed, once again, by Show Team’s vocal director Miss Bennett singing Once More I Can See from the Alice in Wonderland Musical Wonderland. The solo segment was finished with a group performance of Simply The Best from the late Tina Turner.

Saving the very best until last, the final segment was a collection of performances by Frontline, including solos from each member, group performances and their debut single Stay Close To Me. A copy of this single will be available to buy and download by mid-September. The day was finished with a group rendition of Hey Jude by The Beatles.

Everybody involved in this concert thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and we truly hope everyone watching did too. We hope to host more events like this in the future. I would personally like to thank all of the St. Mary’s Church volunteers, and the Miltoncross staff (and students!) who helped make this happen.