Young Talent :2010

http://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/lifestyle/arts/3900966/Young-talent

10 July 2010

Finding her own identity feels important for Clara van Wel, a year 8 pupil at Fairhall School.

Doing it through music puts most people on her side. Family members are her biggest fans and recognised Clara's interest in music when she was an infant. Last month, judges at the inaugural Marlborough's Got Talent show awarded her first prize for the original song Crocodile Tears.

Because it's one of her newer ones, the song isn't included in Evolution, an eight-track CD Clara's family helped her record last year.

"I have spells when I'm writing lots of songs and spells where I try and write songs ... but sometimes I just can't reach them."

What does she do then?

Clara smiles. "My sister and I like climbing trees and running around," she says.

"And I like baking – and cleaning up."

Her mum Rachel interjects: "You probably like baking more than cleaning up."

Rachel describes Clara's love of music as inherent but wonders if she personally had a little input in nurturing it. She remembers singing Kumbaya hundreds, maybe thousands of times as a go-to-sleep lullaby when Clara was really little.

"And we've always sung a lot as a family. But lately we've started jamming – just for entertainment."

Clara grins at her mum, then says: "Well, it entertains me."

She has weekly lessons on an acoustic, steel-string guitar and practises each day in the long corridor of the van Wel's house. It has good resonance, she says.

Clara was born in London and spent much of her childhood in England, most recently in a town called Tunbridge Wells. It was "busy" and "very grey" she remembers, but it was where singing lessons had started.

Her "fabulous" Tunbridge Wells teacher had allowed pupils to follow whatever style of music they wanted, so Clara chose soft and alternative pop.

Moving with her family to Marlborough near the end of 2007, she now counts New Zealand singer-songwriter Bic Runga as one of her influences. She usually includes a few Runga covers when she sings for shoppers at the Marlborough Farmers' Market.

Originals can be slipped in, too, and people who like her songs might drop a coin or two in her guitar case. But making money isn't Clara's main motive for playing at the market.

"I just like performing."

She is unfazed about singing in front of others.

"If you are closed up and nervous, the audience won't enjoy it much," she says.

Clara will be among the performers in a variety concert and charity auction raising money for a play area to be included in the new children's wing at Wairau Hospital on July 24