Five girls from St Swithun’s Junior School, Winchester have reached the final in a national songwriting competition.
Sofia Goodale and Annabel Yeatman, both aged 10 from Winchester, and Lucy Benton, aged 11 from Ropley, originally composed their song, Disco Crazy for the school’s own Fame Academy competition. They were joined by singers Ira Khosla, aged 11 from Basingstoke and Sianna Barling, aged 10 from Alresford to form a band called POW which won the audience prize in the school’s competition.
They then submitted the song to the Song Academy national competition. Judged by some of the best of British songwriters, Song Academy empowers young songwriters by enabling them to showcase their talent and gain critical feedback from industry professionals. This year’s judging panel includes Tom Odell, Naughty Boy, Eg White and Fraser T Smith, Jamie Scott, James Walsh, Josh Record and Nigel Wright.
The girls were competing against hundreds of other singer/songwriters. There are two age-groups in the competition, 7-12 and 13-18. St Swithun’s juniors competed in the lower age-group. The winners will be announced on the 8 May.
All the winners and finalists will perform at Westfield, Shepherds Bush on Sunday 21 June. There will be prizes for the winners and runners up (top 3 in each category). The winners also spend a half day in a London recording studio, and make a professional CD of their song.
Director of music at St Swithun’s Junior School, Miss Caroline Silvester said ‘We are enormously proud of Sofia, Annabel, Lucy, Sianna and Ira for producing such a catchy and fun song and getting through to the finals of this exciting competition. They are musical girls and their hard work has paid off. I look forward to seeing them rocking out at Westfield!’
In September, the Song Academy will be running two after school clubs at St Swithun’s Junior School.