Last month, Dio's Kezia Schuitemaker travelled to New York City to perform at Carnegie Hall as part of the High School Honors Performance Series - limited to the highest-rated young performers in the world! Kezia shares some of her wonderful experiences below.

I feel very privileged to have been picked as one of the 600 out of 20,000 people from across the globe for the Honors Performance Series at Carnegie Hall for 2023. I met the most amazing people from around the world and got to perform with them in the prestigious venue, Carnegie Hall. I miss them all so much, and I wish we had spent more time singing together. I can't believe how amazing we sounded after only four days together! And the other choirs and orchestras too!

Over the four days I was there, I learnt five songs (two by heart) for the concert in Carnegie Hall! All the pieces picked were based on reflection and knowing and respecting your culture and where you came from. I thought this was a very relevant and thoughtful theme because it embodied how everyone was from different places across the globe. I also liked how each song had a different meaning and hidden message.

We learnt the five pieces: Reflections from Yad Vashem by Daniel Hall, High Flight by Karen Robinson, Kungala by Stephen Leek, Truth by Andrea Ramsey, and On Children by Ysaye Barnwell. My favourite of these was Reflections from Yad Vashem by Daniel Hall. This song embodies the emotions and feelings of the Holocaust. It included names of children who passed in the holocaust and different languages to help project the meaning, deep emotions, and feelings embedded. When performing this, I almost felt like I was experiencing this at the same time.

As a bonus, we got to visit a few famous landmarks in New York, like the Rockefeller Centre, and the Statue of Liberty, and we even got to see a Broadway Musical (which we got to choose). Every day, we got to walk the streets of New York and visit little stores and food courts close to the hotel where we were staying and practising.

Singing in Carnegie Hall, New York, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I am very proud to have been able to take it. I made so many new friends, and they improved my whole trip. I could not have wished for a better group of girls to be in my chaperone group within the choir. We lived together, and I was not expecting everyone to be so open and nice. My amazing roommates became my closest friends, and I hope to see them again. So many memories were made, and I will never forget them.

A massive thank you to Gary Seighman for being a brilliant conductor. To the Honors Performance Series for letting me have this opportunity. To Portia for being an amazing chaperone. I could not have had a better time.