Santa Barbara Students Get Big Break with Andrea Bocelli Tour
http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/112409_santa_barbara_students_to_tour_with_andrea_bocelli/
By Heather Harkness, Noozhawk Intern
Several Adderley School students are given the opportunity to perform with renowned Italian tenor on holiday tour
Students of the Adderley School of the Performing Arts have the opportunity to sing with Grammy-nominated Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli on his holiday tour this year. A handful of Santa Barbara students will be participating.
Bocelli — and the students — will perform in Florida, New Jersey and Toronto. The first concert is Saturday at the Bank Atlantic Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. On Dec. 3, they will be performing at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. The final performance will be at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, N.J.
Wanting to include a children’s choir on the tour, which includes stops in Anaheim and Fresno next month, organizers contacted Adderley students in Santa Barbara. Bocelli has worked with the Adderley School before, and apparently was impressed by the students’ talent. Now, as many as a dozen Adderley students will be singing at each of the three performances.
Christina, who sang with Bocelli for his holiday CD, My Christmas, called the experience “incredible.”
“Working with my friends in the Adderely Choir, (singer) David Foster and Andrea Bocelli was an incredible experience,” she said. “I am so fortunate to be able to sing with such an amazing artist.”
Another student, Julieanna, had this to say: “You can’t believe the beauty and strength of Bocelli’s voice. He is magical! It has been an honor and joy to be in the company of the man who is considered to be the best singer in the world!
“Andrea Bocelli is also very kind and nice to all of us. I wonder if he knows how much I love being up there on stage singing with him? When he sings to you it is so powerful, so beautiful, it brings tears to my mom’s eyes. I love this whole experience.”
Bocelli isn’t the only celebrity working with Adderley students this holiday season. A group of Santa Barbara students recently traveled to Washington, D.C., to sing with Olivia Newton-John for a Fox Thanksgiving Day TV special, Kaleidoscope. Among the songs they performed was “Hope Is Always Here,” which Newton-John wrote with children who are cancer survivors.
The Adderley School of the Performing Arts was founded by Janet Adderley, a mother of two who started the school 13 years ago in Pacific Palisades. She now has a studio there and in Santa Barbara. Adderley students have gone on to perform on Broadway and on film with celebrities such as Foster, Dustin Hoffman, Josh Groban and Beyoncé Knowles. Student ages vary from preschool to age 17.
— Noozhawk intern Heather Harkness is an eighth-grader at Santa Barbara Middle School.
http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/112409_santa_barbara_students_to_tour_with_andrea_bocelli/