Bay girl to sing at Sevens | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

Waipukurau's Alanna Barkle will be fending off nerves, not defenders, at the Wellington Sevens today when she takes to the stage alongside four others in a $2000 singing competition.

The 18-year-old said performing in front of 35,000 people would easily be the biggest audience she had faced. She was selected from online auditions in which she recorded and uploaded a video of her singing the Brooke Fraser single There's Something in the Water.

Ms Barkle previously sung the national anthem at the Waipukurau races last year, and performed at the Sound Shell in Napier in front of a few thousand people when she was 12.

"That was probably the biggest crowd I've ever sung in front of," she said. "So it's a bit of a step up."

She remembered shaking so much before the Sound Shell performance she could barely sing.

"I remember being quite intimidated, so I can't imagine what the Sevens will be like. But I think once I get up and start singing it will be all right."

The stomach butterflies will likely start when she is flown to Wellington this morning for the sound check, and end only when the winner is announced about 7.30pm.

She said her online audition was a spur of the moment decision when she came across the competition while searching for jobs. When she found she had been selected in the final five, she confessed to feeling guilty as she screamed in the woman's ear over the phone.

"I kind of felt bad afterwards, but I was just so excited. I just stood there with my mouth open because I've never sung in front of that many people before."

She comes from a musical background with her grandmother being part of a tap dancing duet and said she would not know what to do without music in her life.

Ms Barkle is moving to Dunedin later this month to begin university studies, not surprisingly to major in a Bachelor of Performing Arts, with minors in dance and theatre.

She hopes to one day work in the music industry.

"I've been singing my whole life, and doing competitions. Hopefully one day [I'll] be a performer, but anything in the music industry would be great."