On Saturday 7 October, the St Mary’s jazz band performed by invitation at the annual Sacred Heart Festival. This year, there were many food stalls as a new focus for this community festival. Unfortunately, the weather promised rain, so the music events were moved inside.

Not to be deterred while the rain poured down at that moment, The Indecisives – made up of Emma Rogers (vocals and guitar), Melissa Hill (drums) and Zaneli Steeneveldt (piano) – took to the stage in the early afternoon, and gave a riveting performance. Emma has extraordinary charisma, and we feel privileged to watch this young musical star rise!

The jazz band gave a soulful, polished performance of mostly South African standards and compositions to a warm response from the audience. In particular, Veneka Paradza impressed with her silky vocals on Don’t Know Why and Black Coffee, and Jemma Aldworth brought the house down with her riveting rendition of At Last. Yashmiri Shanmugam, 2017 bandleader, also had the crowd on their feet with her virtuosic, soulful tenor saxophone playing as she took centre-stage to perform Zebra Crossing. Yashmiri also performed this piece at the prizegiving on 13 October in recognition of her having achieved the top mark in the matric Music class, a spectacular 95%, for her IEB music practical examination.

Thank you to the jazz band of 2017 for the hard work and commendable team spirit!

Ceri Moelwyn-Hughes
Music teacher