Our tour gets a little extra help from the talented kids of Halifax

Think of Halifax and singing and you might end up remembering the series of ads that the Halifax Building Society did a few years ago where members of staff sang to well-known tunes (if you need a reminder, take a look below...)

We wanted to see for ourselves whether the youth of Halifax could go one better, and so, after a quick crafty snooze following our earlier, early morning Bradford show, came in search of young talent to test our theory.

After an early start, Amanda and Rachael took the chance to catch 40 winks before their afternoon show on Phoenix Radio

Luckily, we also had our own little bit of extra help from Howard Priestley of local radio station Phoenix Radio 96.7fm.

With Howard, we met our first duet, Neve and Josh and soloist Emily Taylor-Smith.  Neve and Josh sang their own rendition of the emotional song, Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton, whilst Emily sang Dream a Dream from the hit musical Les Miserables.  You can watch clips of their performances below. 

As always, we were delighted with the talented performances. We loved the classical sound of Emily with the retro sound of Neve and Josh.  It was fantastic to hear something quirky and unusual.  

The show at Phoenix FM is the 11th in the Junior Star Singer Songwriter UK tour, which aims to give young singers all over the UK aged between 10 to 16 the chance to showcase their talents, with the lucky winner getting to record a song with top UK music producer Anthony Goldsborough. The competition will be judged by mentors within the music industry.

Have a listen to our show on Phoenix 96.7FM:

We will be inviting the winning contestant to a London recording studio close to Christmas this year so that they can record their own track which they would have written themselves and collaborated with Anthony Goldsborough and Amanda Neale.

The track will then be played on all of the radio stations that have been on the Junior Star Singer Songwriter Tour. The tour itself works in aid of a charity called Youth Music, which works to help to change the lives of children across the country, investing in projects to help disadvantaged youngsters to find a direction through music and musical expression. Rachael Summers has been telling the listeners about youth music on all of the junior staff singer shows. The whole of the tour is promoted especially to make people aware of the great work that Youth Music does across the UK, so please donate on “TOUR11 £5” to 70070.

Good luck to all the Halifax contestants, you did a superb job. Thanks to Howard too for a very cool show!

Amanda

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