Petrina can rock but the popular Villages performer has long held a secret ambition: to sing big band music here. She finally gets her chance on Feb. 24, at 7 p.m. in the Colony Cottage Recreation Center. Skip Spurgeon and the Savoys Big Band will accompany Petrina. It’s billed as “The Sweetheart Dance.” Singer Dodie Fisher will also perform.
Tickets are $27 and part of the proceeds will benefit the iSparkle Scholarship fund. Dress is “smart and formal” for the BYOB event. For information go to: sparkleteamcoord@gmail.com
“I love big band music,” said Petrina who grew up in England and became a U.S. citizen four years ago. “I used to sing for a big band in Nottingham, England.
“I guess I’m an old soul when it comes to this music. If I could choose what I would sing it would be just big band music.”
Petrina may seem hip and cool, but in her heart she’s just living in the glorious past of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and singers like Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald.
“I’m clinging onto that era so hard; I just don’t want it to let it go,” she said. “Ella Fitzgerald is my favorite artist of all time. I love anything she sings. The minute I listened to her voice I knew I had to sing some of her songs.”
Petrina discovered Peggy Lee as a child when she went to see the movie, “The Lady and the Tramp.”
“I loved the song, ‘He’s a Tramp’ and I knew one day I was going to sing it. But I didn’t know knew who sang the song, , until I saw it on a CD. I found out her name was Peggy Lee, I was in love with her voice.”
