Music As I sit down to think about the year, whilst there is a large amount of sadness at not having been able to give the pupils the opportunity of performing at Cadogan Hall in London, taking the Junior Choir to Paris to sing at Disneyland or saying a normal farewell to our talented musicians in the Upper Sixth, I am filled with such joy at what we have nonetheless been able to achieve. We may not have been able to fulfil the planned large events during the Summer Term, but that doesn’t mean that the Music Department hasn’t been busy! Each week from the summer half term, pupils sent in videos of themselves singing and playing at home during lockdown. These videos were put together to form a short lunchtime concert each week and ranged from pupils in the First Year, to our musicians in the Sixth Form. Not only did some performances show a great deal of skill, but some also showed a very
imaginative way of using technology. Oliver Fogelin stunned us all with his one-man Barbershop performance and Laurie Horwood managed to play a cello duet by himself! In addition to these concerts, two large ensembles were produced: the remote orchestra consisting of 70 musicians taken from the various orchestras and wind bands, playing a medley from ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and a very large choir taken from our Senior Choir, Junior Choir and Year 6 at the Junior School singing ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight?’ from The Lion King. These projects were a huge success, thanks to the brilliant musicians who had managed to record themselves playing and singing at home with a backing track, whilst also ensuring that they had found outstanding costumes to wear! Our amazing tech team then put it all together to produce two very professional performances. In addition, we were then entertained by the outstanding Barbershop group singing their
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The Churcherian 2020
‘Isolation’ medley. It was fantastic to see a few ‘new’ members that had crept in to the ensemble! So back to the year before Coronavirus took over our lives! The Spring Concert, held in St. Peter’s Church, took place a week before lockdown. Little did we know at the time, but this would be the last major concert of the academic year – and, with hindsight, I couldn’t imagine a better way to go into lockdown. The Senior Choir always like a challenge, but one challenge that we have never undertaken before is in singing sections from Handel’s ‘Messiah’. Wow, how well they all rose to the challenge! Their performance of various choruses from Part 2 of this famous work will long live in my memory, particularly the chords of the Hallelujah chorus ringing out around the church, accompanied by a professional orchestra. The evening began with some classics from the orchestra including the
