The night was alight at Sydney’s City Recital Hall this evening, as the annual Light the Night concert celebrated both its tenth birthday and it’s final ever concert with an enthusiastic crowd and a stunning array of performances put on by an amazing lineup of Australian talent.
The Light the Night Benefit Concert raises money for Leukemia Research, and was inspired by Matthew Rennie and his three year battle with leukemia. Over the years the annual concert evening has raised over $400,000 for leukemia research and cancer patient resources. The money raised from tonight’s concert has helped fund the Light the Night Research Grant undertaken by St Vincent’s Hospital.
The concert itself is a brilliant night and showcases a highly diverse collection of talent that you’d rarely see together in the one place, who have all donated their time to help raise money for the cause.
Highlights of the evening included hilarious hosting by Jan van de Stool, expressive interpretative sign language dancing to “I Will Always Love You” (both versions), an incredible aerial ribbon performance accompanied by beautiful rendition of “Letting You Go”, the Wicked cast performing “Climb Every Mountain”, Esther Hannford singing “I’ll Hold On” from Miracle City, Lucy Durack’s stunning “At Last” and Lior’s performance of a favorite of Matthew Rennie’s- “This Old Love”.
A truly standout performance of the evening though, was the revisit of iOTA’s“Come Back For Me” from a previous LTN. Such a beautiful piece of music, the lyrics and music are incredibly emotive. You couldn’t hear a pin drop throughout the whole song- the audience was completely captured.
The Light The Night concert events have been a brilliant gathering of both performers and audiences in support of an incredibly worthy cause over the past 10 years. The work of Shaun and Adam (Matt’s brothers) and Monica and Greg in pulling together such an event has shown a very real demonstration of the power of humankind, in Shaun’s own words in his final speech- humans who are “heartfelt, charitable, generous and kind. Who look after each other when we are down”.
Light The Night will be missed, but it’s cause will not be forgotten- all who have been involved over the years have most definitely helped brighten the way towards a cure.
The evening concluded with brother and founder Shaun performing an emotional rendition of Barry Manilow’s“You’re There”, before being joined once again by all the performers to say a fond final farewell to LTN with “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” to standing-ovation.
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Light the Night has been an annual event, to find out more information or to find out how you can help visit http://www.lightthenight.com.au
The reviewer attended the one-night-only final concert performance on the 27th October.
