80-anthem world tour to close with Jays game
After serenading people in 80 countries with their own national anthems, Vancouver’s Capri Everitt,11, is finally back on Canadian soil and ready to sing at the Toronto Blue Jays game Friday.
“It’s really exciting,” Capri told the Star on Tuesday during a visit to the CNE with her family: mother Kerrie, father Tom and little brother Bowen. The Everitts have spent the past nine months bouncing around the world so Capri could sing various national anthems to raise money for international charity SOS Children’s Villages. Friday marks the last stop.
“I’m very excited to have sung all my 80 anthems and I’m very excited not to have to learn, every second day, a different anthem in a different language,” Capri said. “But I’m proud that I’ve learned all the anthems.”
Dubbed Around the World in 80 Anthems, a twist on the classic novel Around the World in 80 Days, Capri’s journey began last year on Nov. 20, when she sang “O Canada” at UNICEF’s Universal Children’s Day celebrations in Ottawa. Since then, she’s travelled to countries including South Africa, Indonesia, Liechtenstein and Trinidad and Tobago, singing anthems in 41languages.
Capri, who has been singing and playing piano since she was 5, was inspired to do something after reading stories about child poverty. It was her father who came up with the idea to sing anthems and her mother who thought up 80 Anthems.
The couple, who work in real estate, said their trip was partially funded by sponsors such as Flight Centre and Eurail but they also used their own money. None of the donations collected was used by the family, and a book and documentary are also in the works to help raise more money for SOS, Kerrie said.
Throughout the trip, Capri sang at schools and SOS villages, often accompanied by local children, while lBowen wrote a blog documenting their travels. Although singing anthems in Spanish and French wasn’t too difficult, Capri said the anthems for China and Poland posed the biggest challenges.
“(Mandarin and Polish are) so difficult and different from English . . . And also, (the anthems) are very long,” she said.
She finally hit country — and anthem — Number 80 on Aug.12, when she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a Washington Nationals baseball game in Washington, D.C.
Although the adventure is drawing to an end, Capri is thrilled to be going home. “I haven’t had my own room in nine months,” she said. “(I’m going to) see my friends, because I haven’t seen them in a long time except on a computer screen, and I’m excited to see them in real life.”