Music student to play at Glastonbury this summer

Five students from a music college have been chosen to perform at Glastonbury next month.

They all study at WaterBear in Brighton, which encouraged them to apply for a spot on the festival's Croissant Neuf stage.

Among them is singer Rebekah Searle, 21, from Crawley, who said: “I was over the moon when I found out. I couldn’t believe it.

"I was extremely excited and all I kept thinking about was rehearsing for the big day and getting started straight away. I couldn’t wait. It was honestly a dream come true.”

Rebekah Searle did a support tour with Morgan Harper Jones (Image: Rebekah Searle)

Also performing will be Waterbears' Josh Roberts, Izzie Derry, Theo Warrington, Josh Hazeldon and Joanna Jacobs.

Rebekah is in her first year at Waterbear and is studying for a BA in professional music (songwriting).

She creates dark indie pop music and plays several instruments, including the piano, saxophone, ukulele and drums.

She plans to perform a range of songs at Glastonbury, including her single Delusional, which will be released in the summer.

Rebekah said: “I'm inspired by artists such as Billie Eilish, ENNY and Disclosure. I always try to be unique with the production of my songs, experimenting with bass, synth and vocals to create strange and unusual sounds that no one’s heard before.

“My mindset when creating songs is based around taking the audience on a journey, showing them a reality that only I can see.”

She began writing music during Covid to cope with the stress and uncertainty. She said: “I found Covid extremely isolating, especially being an only child. I found that I could express my emotions in a healthy way through songs while also building a great community on social media who were struggling with similar situations.

“We were all healing and coping together.”

Glastonbury takes place from June 26 to June 30 this year but the students' performance dates have not yet been confirmed.