FESTIVAL OF CHICHESTER: Anna Foye and friends line up

Hambrook teenager Anna Foye leads her very own night for the Festival of Chichester after scoring spectacular success in a national competition earlier this year.
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Anna

Singer-songwriter Anna will be joined by guests in the Music Block Recital Hall at Chichester College on Friday, July 3 from 6.30-7.30pm.

14-year-old Anna, a pupil at Bishop Luffa and Chichester Music Academy, secured a place in the national final of the Open Mic UK competition at the NEC in Birmingham, coming home with a third place in the UK for her age group.

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“I just look back on it as a great experience,” says Anna. “I was not that bothered about winning. I was just wanting the experience of getting a closer look at the music industry. It was a bit scary, but if you want something, you have got to go for it. If you have got a goal, you have got to try.”

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Anna

For Anna, that goal is her own career in the business – though she has emerged a little wary of competitions.

“I found it so much more pressurised than I thought. I definitely want to go into the industry when I am older, but I don’t really want the competition scene. If you don’t win, you start thinking you are not good enough. There is a negative pressure. I don’t regret doing it at all. It was a really good experience, but I don’t think competitions are for me. I don’t think music is about saying one person is better than someone else.”

Far more natural is to go down the showcase route which is what Anna will be doing for the Festival of Chichester – a suggestion which came from the Festival itself and a suggestion to which the Chichester Music Academy instantly responded.

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The Academy has been an enthusiastic supporter of the festival from the start, providing much of the festival’s first-day entertainment on the Cathedral Green last year and then this year taking over the organisation as well for the first-day fun. Both last year and this year, Anna was among the performers. Now she is looking forward to her own date at the festival.

“I am so excited. It is so different to anything else I have ever done before. I have never been the headline before, but it has taken so much work and preparation. It is going to be a really different experience.”

The evening will feature Anna plus some of her Chichester Music Academy friends. Anna herself will be mixing covers and originals.

As for recording, Anna’s thinking about her own album: “It would be a dream!”

Tickets £4 on door; children £2.

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