When I was 9 years old we did a play at school about the story of Noah's Ark called The Rainbow Express. It was a musical, the staff played the leads, and the 8s and 9s played the chorus parts.
It was a massive undertaking. I was set to sing a duet with my sister but I got sick (I always got sick and missed shows) and had to watch it from the audience instead.
That moment sat with me for another 8 years. At 17 years old I went to the staff who were still teaching at the same school I'd been attending all that time, and said I have a proposal: let's put on The Rainbow Express again and I'll direct it.
And miraculously they agreed. Almost all of my graduating friends agreed to be in it. We called ourselves lifers because we'd been at school together there since we were 3 years old. So it went on the school calendar that spring and we performed it the following year.
May 1996 I was graduating Grade 13 (we had that back then) from Hillfield-Strathallan College and I got to sing that song I hadn't sung when I was 9. I got to envision and direct a massive undertaking for an 18 year old with students from the Montessori & Senior Schools, alongside my former teachers. Who does that?! I am amazed by younger me!
If I'm looking at the last 10 years of my life as a musician, I have to look back farther still to see how I got here. I am so proud of me and all of us who took that risk back then to do something outlandish one last time together.
