Lucy's delight at her latest solo success

Lucy Farrimond, from Standish, recently performed in her first lunchtime recital at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester and also had a role in a sold-out concert of Broadway songs.

The 17-year-old, who is studying singing and piano, performed in the school’s 600-year-old baronial hall for hundreds of music enthusiasts including her fellow students, teachers and proud parents Tracey and Roger.

Lucy also got to perform at The Bridgewater Hall during her first term at Chetham’s, popularly known as Chets, for choral composer John Rutter’s 70th birthday celebrations but says performing her first recital with just piano accompaniment is a particularly important milestone in her development as a musician.

She said: “The Broadway concert was really good fun, there was a great atmosphere in the hall.

“The lunchtime recital the week before was the first one I’d done so I was a bit nervous at first but once I got into it I was fine and really enjoyed it.

“I’m now hoping to do a lot more solo concerts and lunchtime recitals while I’m at Chets. I really like solo performances where it’s more intimate between you and the audience, although I also enjoy the big orchestral concerts.”

Lucy’s debut lunchtime recital saw her sing an eclectic programme made up of Flow My Tears by 17th-century English composer John Dowland, a song by French composer Gabriel Fauré and one by American musicals writer Cole Porter.

She also took audiences back to the golden age of New York musical theatre at the From Broadway to the Baronial concert, which was standing room only and included Lucy singing solo passages in Leonard Bernstein’s song America from West Side Story and I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair from South Pacific.

She is also looking forward to performing in a concert devoted entirely to Chets’ singers in March and Get Weaving, a new opera written to commemorate the anniversary of the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932.

Lucy, who moved to the famous music school from Runshaw College last September, says she has already learned a huge amount in her time at Chets, which also has a chamber choir and a singers’ ensembles as well as developing pupils’ solo performing abilities.

She said: “We’ve worked a lot on vocal technique and performing in front of audiences. Before I started I had hardly any experience other than playing the piano and it has built my confidence up.

“Chets also teaches you the full package of all-round skills as a musician, such as turning up to rehearsals and being punctual. I’ve had so many opportunities already.”

Lucy’s progress as a singer has also delighted her proud mum Tracey, who along with husband Roger is part of an immensely musical family with the ensemble Prospects Brass being made up almost entirely of Farrimond family members.

Tracey said: “It is amazing how much she has developed since being there. At the lunchtime recital we were nervous for her but also incredibly proud. Her house parent took us to one side and told us Lucy was a credit to the school and they loved having her there, which was really nice.

“There were about 60 at the lunchtime recital and she was singing in front of her peers as well as the public, but the Broadway concert was completely packed.”