Singing Star Pays a Visit

Above:  Aivale Cole, Mrs Jones (HOD Music), Georgia Gray (Music Prefect)

Old-girl Mabel Faletolu (whose stage name is Aivale Cole) returned to East on Wednesday to film a clip with Campbell Live.  The clip, which features Aivale along with Mrs Jones and the Small Choir, can be seen on the TV3 website.

She recently won the prestigious Lexus Song Quest, and in a feature article in the Dominion Post she credited Heather Jones and her experience in school choirs as helping develop her singing.

The Lexus Song Quest is the most important song contest in NZ.  Aivale won it this weekend and has even been compared to Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (also a previous winner of the competition), as reported in the Dominion Post.

Mabel won $10,000 cash, air-fares to London and a $15,000 scholarship which will enable her to be coached by a teacher from the prestigious Covent Garden Opera House and to attend auditions all over Europe.

Mabel can be seen on several of the choir photographs outside the music room, especially in the Multichoir photograph which shows Mabel as the soloist when the Multichoir won a gold medal at the Choral Festival in Dunedin.

Rosie Salas, a former Vocal Studies teacher at East returned to be interviewed with Aivale.  She, Heather Jones and Margaret McLeod all played a part in ensuring this star pupil reached her potential.  They coached her for her successful NASDA audition, which was the first step in her furthering her enormous talent.