News
What a week we have had! The school has been buzzing with excitement and joy.
On Wednesday evening The Toffee Bear Choir performed in the stunning St Marylebone Parish church in Marylebone as part of the ‘Together at Christmas’ concert for ‘The Sick Children’s Trust’. They have been working hard all term rehearsing two songs for this special evening. They began with a beautiful rendition of White Christmas, followed by a piece composed specifically for this event written by myself and the award winning composer Pippa Cleary. The song told the story of the weeks leading up to Christmas at Grimsdell, from the tree going up, to rehearsing for the Christmas show and it even featured our singing Santa in the foyer! The children were truly incredible, Pippa teared up the first time she heard them sing in the sound check! Pippa is about to begin rehearsals for her new musical, ‘The Great British Bake Off’ coming to the Noel Coward Theatre in February and we were honoured to have her accompany the children on the piano.
The concert also involved other artists and celebrity readers such as Amelia Fox, Tim Downey and Alice Bear. It was such a treat for the children to hear the pitch perfect tones of classical singer, Christina Johnson ringing around the majestic church. I even got the chance to dust off my character shoes to sing with friends in ‘The Tootsie Rollers’, a vintage girl band.
It was a magical evening and we were delighted to be a part of it. We received such lovely feedback and I wanted to share the email I received from the organisers after the event:
Dear Sarah,
Thank you so much for bringing your wonderful Toffee Bear choir to our event last night and for performing with such brilliance and enthusiasm! Although I couldn’t be there, I watched from afar and was glued to the screen. I’m not ashamed to admit I shed a tear at your performances (as I hear many others did too) and I thought the children were just brilliant. I hope you all had a wonderful time too, although I imagine there are quite a few tired children this morning.
I’ve had such lovely feedback about the whole event and I am pleased to hear that it seemed to fill the brief of kick-starting everyone’s festive season. I have heard only good things about your choir and it’s safe to say they were a hit – same time next year, if not before?!
Of course, I also have to thank you for the introduction to the Tootsie Rollers and for your amazing performance with them – you were so right to suggest them for the event and I think your performances really brought a smile to everyone’s faces.
I am busy tallying donations today and we are already at £13.5k so I am hopeful we will hit £15k by the end of the day which is enough to support a family for over a year in one of our ‘Homes from Home’. Thanks to your support, we can continue to be there for families like Annie’s that you heard about last night.
Warm wishes,
Hannah
As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one week, we then went straight into our Christmas show performances the very next day! This Years’ show was called ‘The Stars Come Out for Christmas’. The children presented an awards ceremony to reveal the winner of the most outstanding contribution to Christmas. Nominees included, The Christmas Tree, Snow and even The Annual School Christmas Show! But the true Star of Bethlehem claimed her well-deserved ‘cracker’ award for leading the way to the baby Jesus and reminding us all what the true meaning of Christmas really it.
The children were remarkable, they delivered their lines with style and enthusiasm, learnt 11 different songs, we had confident, melodic solos, fantastic dance moves and many logistical moves to remember such as mic swaps and costumes changes. Not only does this opportunity give the children a huge amount of confidence they are also navigating many other details at the same time and learning to think on their feet when things don’t go quite to plan. These are all such important life skills. I am so proud of them and hope it brought happiness to our wonderful audience of friends and family.
