Young songwriter loves rush of performing

 

One of Mangawhai’s young musical prodigies had the chance to showcase her talent to a wider audience recently, being asked to perform on a popular radio show as part of New Zealand Music Month. 

Playing her original song ‘The Last Time at Midnight’, a poignant melody about the March 15 Christchurch massacre, 12-year-old Sophie Lambert brought tears to the eyes of Rodney More FM Breakfast hosts Brent and Jacque when she appeared on May 24. 

“That was so beautiful and moving... very clever and mature song writing… you’re exactly what New Zealand Music Month is all about,” Jacque stated. 

Sophie had just returned from a family trip when she got the message from More FM asking her to perform the next day. The young music fan had previously been a guest DJ on the show and Sophie says ‘there was no way I was saying no!’

“It was nerve wracking knowing a lot of people were listening but it was definitely worth it! Seeing my song bringing tears to Brent and Jacque was a very proud moment for me.”

Sophie wrote ‘The Last Time at Midnight’ after being ‘filled with emotion’ while watching the news footage of the tragedy, and says she ‘just had to write about it’.  

“I was sad for all the families that had lost their loved ones and mad at the person who did all of it,” she says. “A bunch of ideas were in my head and then all I did was write, write and write! My voice was shaky… I wanted to cry thinking about all the people who had passed away during the attack.”
Singing ‘almost every day’ since she was only three years old, Sophie was nine when she began guitar and piano lessons with ‘my amazing teacher, Mr Bradley’. 

“I had two years of lessons with him before he moved away and then I taught myself some more. He taught me so much and I wouldn’t be where I am today without him,” she says. “I wrote my first song when I was nine too, about a movie I watched, all the lyrics just came to me. I love writing songs about what I’m going through, it’s like my diary but with a melody.” 

Her recent radio appearance was another experience Sophie can add to a growing list of performances which include entertaining crowds at Warkworth’s Kowhai Festival and the Kumeu Show, as well as to fellow students and staff at Mangwhai Beach School’s assemblies and annual talent show. 

A well-known busker around Mangawhai, Sophie hones her natural musical gifts to the delight of many shoppers at local shops and the Tavern Markets which she says she finds ‘totally enjoyable and rewarding’. 

“I love the rush of performing and then seeing people’s reaction,” she says. “Being a performer to me is being able to entertain and do what I love.” 

 See Sophie play at the Mangawhai Tavern, Sunday June 9, from 1pm.

There’s an emotional reaction to Sophie’s moving song about the Christchurch massacre.