Jesse

“I don’t sing in the shower I sing in the truck.

I drive for Bidfood. I’m loving being in the truck, meeting people face-to-face, traveling all around Canterbury, I just love driving. It means I can have the radio on and sing to my heart’s content!

Singing keeps me going. If I’m having a low day, I just jump in the truck, put some music on and sing. It cheers me up. It’s probably where some of my best performances have taken place!

I love singing. I have choir –  The Vocal Collective – and Sumner Theatre Group.

I got the opportunity earlier this year to perform at Carnegie Hall, New York with The Vocal Collective. 250 people from all over the world came together to sing. It was an amazing experience to be in one of the world’s most prestigious venues – I’ll never forget it.

And I play piano at church; learning different songs every week; that’s quite fun and challenging. I started learning piano at intermediate. I stopped going to lessons when I got my grade three and now it’s just self- teaching. I can sit there and have the radio playing and just start working it out.

Elton John, Queen, Whitney Houston; I love a lot of those 80s classics. Phil Collins brings me back to road trips up the Kaikoura Coast with Dad.

Sometimes I go down to the Tannery and just play; when all the lights are off and the shops are closed. I just play.

It’s open every night and there’s a piano sitting there, so why not? There’s a sign on it; ‘only play if you can play well’. Otherwise people just come along and plonk away.

Sometimes if people are waiting for a movie or something they’ll just come and sit down for a minute or they’ll walk past and say “oh that sounds nice.”

Sometimes I sing too –  if there’s no one in the room.

It makes me happy. Music is my happy place!”

-Jesse