Seven time Amateur Night at the Apollo winner Larrita Adderley will warm up the crowds at the Bermuda Music Festival 08 this evening.

Amongst recently singing the American National Anthem at the New York Mets' game, she is also the Bermuda Idol 2007 and Singing for Success's most recent champion.

Bermuda Idol 2004 runner up and Singing for Success winner, Twanee Butterfield, and Singing for Success runner up Aimee Bento, will join Miss Adderley on the main stage tonight.

The Island's Wall Street Band, under the direction of Robert Edwards, will back them.

Miss Adderley took the time to speak with The Royal Gazette about the opportunities that have come her way.

"Big things are going on!" she said. "Hopefully I will get to meet some of the celebrities."

"In 2003, I sang background vocals for Marika Andre, and it was with Bebe Winans and Natalie Cole in Dockyard."

"So this time I am actually going to sing on the main stage alongside Aimee Bento and Twanée Butterfield."

Asked what were they going to perform, she would only say that the trio would be doing solos within their act.

"We are keeping this as a surprise," said the former Oakwood College student. "Each of us has a solo that we will all be participating in together."

Of her most recent appearence at Shea Stadium, where she sang the US national anthem before a New York Mets game, she had one word: "Awesome!"

"I felt like a celebrity for one night. It was like 55,000 people, that's like singing to the whole of Bermuda."

"It was the bomb!"

Miss Adderley is the latest in a long line of performing artists. Her grandmother, Mildred Blyden Davis, won an Amateur Night at the Apollo when she was only 16-years-old, while her grandfather, Quince Blyden, was a tap dancer.

And her mother also sang and was a pianist in church.

As a child growing up in Bay Estate, St. Davids, she was known for waking the neighbours in the wee hours with her singing.

"I have been singing since I was a little girl and when I'd come home from nursery, my nan would play all the nursery songs on the piano and I would sing," she reminisced.

"We'd have a good ole time. I always sang in the neighbourhood and was waking my neighbours at seven o'clock in the morning."

"They'd tell me, 'shut up Larrita!' Or they would knock on my door and I've even been threatened by the landlord. I've been doing that since high school days, every morning at seven o'clock and non-stop."

"I didn't know what I was going to become while doing all of that, I didn't know that I would be doing all of this."

Asked her favourite genre, she said: "Gospel, R&B and Soul, but I am not a Jazz singer, I appreciate it, but I am not a Jazz singer."