If you have attended any special ceremony or BBC in the past two years at The Benjamin School and heard a resonant, beautiful voice singing the “National Anthem” or any number of other songs, chances are you have been in the presence of the talented seventh grader Summer Scott. Summer is not just a phenomenon at Benjamin, she is also an accomplished singer with an EP (extended play, shorter than an album but longer than a single) called Something Now available on iTunes. The EP features the tracks “Something Now,” “Smile,” “Changes,” “Water and a Flame,” “See You Again,” and “Don’t Rain on my Parade.”

Singing and performing is part of Summer’s family history. In fact, her great-aunt, Dolores Kennedy, who was a WAVE (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency) during World War II, performed on Broadway in the musical Tars and Spars with Sid Caesar and Victor Mature and would have been in the film version had she not fallen ill with appendicitis at the time of filming. However, singing is not just in Summer’s DNA, she has personal reasons to sing. Asked about her passion for music, Summer replied, “I just love singing. I like the feeling of being on stage.” Her inspirations and personal favorite artists are Hunter Hayes, JoJo, and Lea Michele, and her goal for her singing is “to have a career in the future.” However, Summer knows that in “the industry [it] is tough to make it all the way.”

Before she came to The Benjamin School in the middle of sixth grade, Summer split her time between Boston and Florida and her family still has very close ties to Massachusetts. She has been singing since she was five years old, and she currently records with Bristol Studios in Boston. She is very independent with her work. “I write my own songs. I write the melody and the lyrics, and then I work with my producer,” she said. Along with her original songs, her EP features classics made famous by other artists, such as “Water and a Flame” by Celine Dion and “Don’t Rain on my Parade” by Barbara Streisand.

If you would like to witness Summer’s singing in person, come to the Musical Theater class’s performance of Willie Wonka on February 19 and 20.

We at Benjamin are so fortunate to be able to enjoy the unique and unmistakable voice of Summer Scott and cannot wait to see what the future holds so that we can say we knew her when….