Eleven Cambridge Middle School music students are hitting the road on Sunday to perform a Sunday music session. Front row (from left): drummer Sam Allen, guitarist Daniel Hill, singer/songwriter Ava Bell and drummer Jake Hayward. Back row (from left): singers Bella Walker and Ruby Sem, keyboard players Kaeden Whyte and Alex Kim, singers Julija Decik and Alexis Woolridge, and teacher Sacha Marnoch. Absent: Harry Trollope.
They could be the Taylor Swifts, Axl Roses and Olivia Rodrigos of tomorrow, but for today, they’re just amped to be playing their first “proper gig”.
A group of Cambridge Middle School band members will pack their drum kits, guitars, keyboards and microphones into a van on Sunday and head to Good Union to create some musical fireworks for family, friends and fans.
“Ava has done a couple of performances before, but for the rest of them this is the first time they’re doing a proper gig with people coming to watch them,” head of music Sacha Marnoch said.
“Post Covid, we’re thinking about how to get these kids into the community and doing something close to what they’d be doing as professional artists.
“We want to give them these experiences because they could be doing this as a career one day. So, this is a stepping stone event.”
Sacha, who is in her 11th year of teaching, is a professional singer who plays regular gigs around the Waikato and Bay of Plenty with guitarist Lance Knight in musical duo State of Flow.
The pair will close the show while the students enjoy free food and drinks.
Drummers Jake Hayward and Sam Allen were looking forward to performing – and eating snacks.
“I’m feeling good,” Jake said. “A little bit nervous, but happy at the same time that we’re going to do our gig and get free chips.”
Olympic kayaker Max Brown, who works part-time as a music tutor at Cambridge Middle School, will also be there, performing an acoustic guitar number with one of the students.
Sacha said many students arrived at the school “with very little confidence – which is crazy, because half of them are more talented than I am”.
“Ava, who won the top Waikato vocalist award at Bandquest in August, writes and performs her own songs and she’s incredible; she’s got the voice of an angel…we’ve got one child in here, Daniel, that I’d place at NCEA Level 1 – he’s phenomenal and playing years ahead of his age…Julija can find any harmony you need…they’re just amazing.”
The students said they were feeling excited about the afternoon show.
