Sionna Madden

July 20th I performed at the Isle of Wight Pride Festival, a sold out event with four and a half thousand attendees.

I was awarded fifteen minuets or three songs to perform at the event. To prepare for this opportunity I worked with a vocal coach and guitar teacher, designed an outfit and structured a set list which contained popular country and pride power songs that resinated with my audience. I gained a lot from this performance, working with other performers and technical staff, which has greatly improved my act.

July 1st 2023 - I preformed on stage for the people attending Ventnor Day. This small festival hosts one hundred community stalls and funds other town events.

The event brings in roughly between four to five hundred people yearly.

To match the cheerful nature of the event I played a thirty minute set of upbeat country songs. To help my audience connect with the music, and to reflect that Ventnor is a celebration of the town, I changed a few key words during the performance to include references about the community.

August 19th 2024 - I was invited back again to perform. This time around, because I knew the audience and what to expect I was better able to tailor my act to the audience. For example, I was able to make a custom set list based on what I learnt from my previous performance.

I got a great response from the crowd and I really enjoyed my experience.

July 25th I performed at Reggies Records, a record store on Ventnor high street as a part of the Ventnor Fringe festival. I performed a thirty minute set to full store of listeners. Due to the age range of the frequent customers I drafted a set list centered around country classics. This helped me attract a crowd that filled the maximum capacity of the store.

July 26th I performed a thirty minute set at the Fringe Square. During my act I played a mix of both classic country songs and contemporary hits as I was unsure of the age range and preference of the crowd due to the range of festival attendees. During my performance of Jolene by Dolly Parton I noticed two girls dancing and singing along to the words, so I decided to pull both of them up on stage and we sang the song together.

They both had the biggest smiles on their faces and after my set asked for a picture. Of all of my performances that one was my favorite.

July 27th I performed on the main stage of the Fringe Festival. The main stage is where the majority of the festival acts take place and the festival usually draws around a thousand attendees a year.

As the stage was a band stand set up, it was a challenging performance environment. For this reason I decided to do a mix set with both original songs and covers of popular country songs.

In 2024 I was asked to return to the main stage at the Fringe Festival. Thanks to the great experience I gained during the Isle of Wight Pride Festival I was feeling very confident and comfortable on stage. This power motivated me to perform a brand new song I hadn't done for a crowd yet. Along with a series of country covers I worked my way around the stage and my confidence and abilities shown through. A little bit of sass can go along way, especially for a country signer.

On April 8th I preformed to the visitor's of the Well Being Cafe in Ventnor on the Isle Of Wight.

The Cafe is a community based charity providing help and supporting individuals to access help via other charity's or government organizations. The patrons of the Well Being Cafe are those dealing with mental health issues and other disabilities. For this reason I created a set list of up lifting songs around the theme of community and togetherness.

I wanted to choose music that would inspire hopefulness and joy to a group of people who I knew were struggling.

December 9th I performed at Ventnor Christmas Community Day. This yearly festival is full of joy and excitement for local family's. Sadly due to a nasty chest infection I was unable to speak during the weeks proceeding the performance. But I was keen not to let down the organizers of the event. So, I decided to instead to take four popular christmas pop songs and sign them in makaton. I learnt all the relevant signs to the music and performed voiceless. I wasn't sure how it would go over with the audience but unexpectedly it turned out to be a huge success. I had serval people tell me after the performance how much it meant to them seeing something a bit different and also a performance that was inclusive.