It was another great day of music for Williams Lake competitors Thursday at the Performing Arts B.C. festival taking place this week in Fort St. John.
Music teacher Angela Sommer reports that her student Nicole Curbello won an honourable mention, or fourth place standing, in the intermediate musical theatre category of 17 entries.
"I'm over the moon proud of all of my students," Sommer says. "They all performed their best."
Nicole Curbello is among four competitors and four observers from Cariboo Festival 2016 travelling to the provincial Performing Arts B.C. festival in Fort St. John May 31 to June 4.
“This will be my first time performing at provincials, however, I did get invited as an observer several years ago,” Nicole says. “I’m really looking forward to watching the other musical theatre performers at provincials and attending the workshops.”
Nicole was recommended by Cariboo Festival 2016 vocal adjudicator Melanie Nicole as a competitor in the Intermediate Musical Theatre category.
Recently celebrating her 18th birthday, Nicole will be graduating from Lake City Secondary in June and has been studying voice with Angela Sommer for about 10 years.
“What I love most about singing is the emotion that goes into performing a song and making it your own,” Nicole says. “I’ve always been interested in musical theatre, but I didn’t start performing musical theatre pieces until I was about 11.
“I love the process of getting to know a character and telling a story through music.”
For her entries in the Cariboo Festival 2016 Nicole sang Pulled by Andrew Lippa; Wouldn’t it be Loverly by Lerner and Loewe; Anything You Can Do from the musical Annie Get Your Gun; Papageno/Papagena by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Lacrimosa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The three-week Cariboo Festival 2016 took place in the lakecity during April, wrapping up with the Honours Concert at Cariboo Bethel Church on Saturday, April 30 during which Nicole sang Pulled by Lippa from The Addams Family musical.
At the provincial festival Nicole will be performing Pulled, Wouldn’t it be Loverly, and Green Finch and Linnet Bird by Stephen Sondheim.
“It will be a great opportunity to learn new techniques and get feedback on my progress as a singer,” Nicole says. “I spend at least 15 minutes a day practicing my singing.”