Celtic feast at Berry

KATINA CURTIS

TWO of the acts from last year’s Berry Celtic Festival will be back this year by popular demand.

Thirteen-year-old Briannah Gorden is the only solo singer on the festival’s program.

The organisers invited her to perform again straight after hearing her sing at the inaugural festival last year.

Briannah has been singing classically since she was seven and started studying opera a year later.

“I was always singing when I was little, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star all the time,” she said.

“We went to Perth and I joined a choir and learnt just one song and I sang it all the time and my Year 2 teacher said to mum you should get her a singing teacher.”

She can now sing in English, Welsh, Italian and German as well as play piano, cello, violin and pan flute.

At the Celtic festival she will perform two sets of a variety of English and Welsh songs, including Ar hyd y nos (All through the night), Danny Boy, Mull o’ Kintyre and Greensleeves.

As well as her classical training, this talented youngster performs with the Albatross Musical Theatre Company and Bomaderry Lion Club’s Pride a capella group and has been in Southern Stars twice.

She hopes to study music at Trinity College, London, after high school and is working part-time as a model to raise money for this.

Another of the Celtic festival’s features is traditional Scottish competitions, including tossing the caber and lifting stones.

Five of the Tartan Warriors, who come from Newcastle, Sydney and the Illawarra, will compete in these events.

Organiser David Huxley said the group had been involved in Scottish traditional events for 20 years and had even had the world champion among their number a few times.

“It’s a lot of fun and it’s very, very competitive. We came down last year and it was very well received,” he said.

“It’s a competition between the five; we don’t invite members of the public to take part because we don’t was injuries.”

The Scottish competitions will be commentated by Harry Mitchell, the Australian Aerial Patrol general manager.

The Celtic festival is at the Berry Showground this Saturday between 9.30am and 4pm.