I flew to China at the end of May to sing at a charity event organised by the British Council. It was their centenary ball and they were raising money for Bright Eyes.
I was only going to be in China for 48 hours so I had an action packed schedule! I arrived at 7.30 in the morning and had a day full of exciting meetings and rehearsals. I was able to meet and hang out with the incredibly talented John Altman who was so lovely and so interesting! He was telling me stories about what it was like to perform with Amy Winehouse and how Tina Turner once made him a cup of tea!
The next day I was up early for more meetings, rehearsals and sound checks. I was able to meet Andy Summers (guitarist from The Police) very briefly before my sound check and then we all got ready for the event. For my first performance, I sang 'My Own Sunrise', 'Yue Guang Ai Ren (A Love Before Time)', and Stand As One (all from my début album Shine) to accompany a film of the first ever video footage that was shot in Shanghai around 100 years ago. As I started 'My Own Sunrise', a Chinese lady at the front of the crowd was waving at me with a beaming smile on her face, it was only my very first Chinese teacher from when I was 13 years old! It was so lovely to see her again!
For my second performance I sang the Downton Abbey theme 'Did I Make the Most of Loving You?' accompanied by a video of clips from Downton Abbey, then 'Glorious', 'Let it Go' from Frozen sung in English and Chinese and then 'Are You the Way Home?' which was the first single from my début album Shine. The audience were wonderful, I met so many interesting people and I'm so glad to say that the evening was a huge success!
After my performance, some treats had been left in hotel room; a very pleasant surprise! Here is a picture of them:
There was a white chocolate jigsaw puzzle and some chocolate cakes, one had a mans face made out of icing on top of it! It was very well done, very creative, but a little weird, so I turned him over so he wasn't looking at me and carried on eating the cake! Haha
I then only had one hour to sleep before I was getting picked up to go to the airport! Good job I could sleep on the plane!
Here are a couple more pictures from the event…