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Since it was first established in 1882, the Royal College of Music in London has trained many of the world's most promising young musicians.

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This is Millie Forrest, a 24-year-old master's student who is training to be a classical singer at the Royal College.

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Hi Joe!

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Hi, how are you doing?

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Today, Millie has a rehearsal and practice performance with her friend and accompanist, Joe.

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Many of the students here have already been playing and performing for years

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and Millie is no different

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I've been singing from about the age of seven

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for as long as I can remember

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I've always loved music

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I'm not from a very musical family

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so I'm not really sure where my voice has come from

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but from an early age I knew that I loved being on stage

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and love performing.

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Good.

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Great, shall we just have a go and see how we get on?

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Yeah, what's a good tempo for you?

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She knew that if she won a place at the Royal College of Music,

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it would be a real chance to turn her passion into a profession.

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I had decided to do a Master's at the Royal College of Music

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probably three years ago.

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And when I got in, because it's all audition based, when I got in, I thought, oh, OK, well, maybe I've got a good chance then.

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And and it's been going well ever since.

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Just at the end. Yeah, it's really fabulous.

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I'm improving all the time. I have some lovely friends here, but it is tiring and the competition is really high.

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There are lots of singers out in London who who are really talented.

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But while Millie is following her dream,

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isn't it difficult being a full-time student in London,

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one of Europe's most expensive cities?

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It is, absolutely. It's very expensive.

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and so I've had to have a part-time job all the way through my studies.

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I've been working for six years alongside my training.

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At the moment, I'm an usher at the Wigmore Hall

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and I've been there for three years now.

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So what does a concert hall usher do?

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We mainly look after the audience when there are concerts

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and we do jobs such as checking tickets

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and we're there in case there's a fire or emergency.

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In fact, many music students work as ushers

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and most of them dream of being on stage themselves one day.

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But for Millie, this opportunity came a little sooner than expected

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in July 2017.

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Well, I had a call on the Wednesday evening

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and John Gilhooly, who's the director of the hall,

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told me that he'd like me to step in for a concert on the Saturday.

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So I had a few days to prepare,

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but there was a rehearsal first thing on Thursday morning.

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So I stayed up until probably one in the morning that night,

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desperately learning all the music.

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I found the words particularly tricky, actually.

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So, I mean, a lot of the pieces were in French and German,

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so I got cracking straight away.

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and after just three days of preparation Millie took to the stage but did the audience know she

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was standing in for a singer who was ill there was an announcement made at the beginning of the

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concert which was lovely because I think the whole audience was on my side and everyone wanted me to

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do well and it didn't take Millie long to impress with her voice there was a great applause everyone

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was smiling and clapping and I did have a feeling that I'd done well. And the audience weren't the

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only ones to take notice. So after the concert everything went quiet for a couple of weeks

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and life just went back to normal and then just out of the blue the Times asked whether they

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could do an article on me about what had happened and it was a really nice story. So I think it

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really warmed people's hearts and uh and it was nice to make people smile so um that day all of

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these different news channels got in touch and I went to the BBC and did an interview for them and

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then I met Sky as well and um it was really exciting I must have done five or six interviews

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in the same day and uh and then I remember the next morning um the Evening Standard had uh had

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bought out their newspaper and I saw my face on the front cover and when I got on to the tube

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everyone was reading that paper so I saw about a hundred millis down the carriage that and that

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was that was really surreal and I think that that was when it had sunk in a little bit

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um because the most exciting part for me was getting to sing in the Wigmore Hall along all

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these fabulous singers that I really admire and look up to um but then I and I sort of hadn't

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focused on the media side as much so uh yeah it was it was it was a lovely occasion

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but has this opportunity helped Millie's career I think it has I think um it's given me a boost

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it's made me really inspired and it's made me work harder over the last year but actually

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life carries on and I still have a lot that I want to work on my voice is nowhere near perfect

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and I'm my biggest critic but it's it was nice to know that someone had me in mind and wanted

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to encourage me so fingers crossed things will carry on that positively

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And does she still work at the Wigmore Hall?

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I still work there as an usher

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It's still really expensive living in London

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And every now and again someone comes in and asks

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Are you going to be performing here soon?

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And I just have to tell them that hopefully soon

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Because you never know what people are planning

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But it was a lovely story when it happened

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HE SINGS IN GERMAN