The Lower School Singing Competition, held on Thursday 8 June, was a huge success. The Ernest Read Hall was packed, with boarders, parents, friends and staff turning out in droves to support the performers, and the atmosphere was so positive and appreciative.

Our adjudicator, former West End star Barbara Courtney-King, thoroughly enjoyed herself and was really impressed with the standard of singing and performance here at Queenswood. She had a very difficult job deliberating and her final decision was as follows:

• 
  Commended: Amelia Perry and Emma Meyer 
• Highly Commended: Megan Langley and Ysabel Evans 
• Winner: Anniversary Williams

Anniversary Williams – Take Me to the King – Franklin from Queenswood School on Vimeo.

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Barbara Courtney-King

Barbara studied singing and piano at the Royal Academy of Music and for the first 10 years of her career sang in operas, oratorios and other areas of classical song. Opportunities came along to move into a more commercial world and she then worked a great deal in recording studios on the albums of then very successful artists, such as Roxy Music, Chris de Burgh, Elaine Page and many more.

In the 80s she recorded a very successful solo album Pastourelle, a new version of the Songs of the Auvergne, which led to a lot of TV and more recordings.

She always worked as a session singer in between times, on TV shows, Royal Variety shows and Radio.

In 1982 she started working for Andrew Lloyd Webber as a back- up singer in Cats and this led to becoming the manager of the Vocal Booth singers for Starlight Express a job she loved and stayed with for the whole of the 18 year run.

She retired from the West End in 2002 and subsequently taught Music Theatre performance at Tring School for the Performing Arts and many of her students are now successful professionals. She retired 5 years ago and now just works on a freelance basis, as an examiner for the London College of Music and as an adjudicator.

She has many interests – languages, travel, history and is now a reasonable accordion player.