Music

The Trinity Term in Music is always one which begins with an enormous quantity of music-making, and which then continues with the Friday Lunchtime Concer t series in Cheap Street Church but which is other wise fairly quiet, and which then involves extensive rehearsing during the last week of term the Upper Sixth and Fif th Form musicians return from their various post-exam courses and mini-holidays for a series of four concer ts and one major competition.

The start of the musical term, until the first Exeat, is very much dominated by the Sherborne Abbey Festival Now in its 24th year, the Festival saw international artists such as John Lenehan, Steven Isserlis, Ruth Rogers, Julian Bliss, and The Sixteen performing in Sherborne Abbey, and crucially affords the opportunity for schools in the town to perform to knowledgeable audiences a wonderful experience for any musician at any stage and ability As with several previous years, our contributions to the Festival involved the Swing Band, giving a concert in the unusual venue of our very own School Chapel, the Chamber Choir and Close Harmony group in a Saturday morning Abbey recital and, to cap it all, a Chamber Music Concert in the Abbey during what would ordinarily be our Cheap Street Church Recital slot.

The Chamber Music Recital must surely have been one of our strongest ever W ith recent success in the Mid Somerset Festival, we were able to showcase performances of Poulenc’s ‘Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano’ (Hector Kennerley Sch.Mus (L6g), oboe; Thomas Arbon Valderrama Sch Mus (L6e), bassoon; and Byron Yang Sch Mus (L6d), piano) in what was undoubtedly one of the strongest pupil performances of this music ever heard in Sherborne The first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Trio for Clarinet ‘Cello and Piano, Opus 11’ (Angus W illiams ATCL Sch Mus (U6c), clarinet; Gareth Kwong Exh Mus (L6e), ‘cello; and W illiam Miao Sch Mus (U6f), piano) was an outstanding performance, celebrating particularly fine playing from two leavers with a cellist who still has another year with us A remarkable performance of

Chopin’s ‘Ballade No 1 in G minor, Opus 23’ by Third Former Ian Liu Sch Mus (3d), was complemented by a colourful and quasi-orchestral interpretation of Howells’ ‘Psalm Prelude, No 1, Set 1’ by Angus W illiams on the Abbey’s mighty organ. The Brass Quintet (Archie Beardsell Sch Mus (L6f), flugelhorn; Charlie Burtt Sch Mus (L6c), trumpet; Henry Cannon Sch Mus (L6c), trumpet; Bamber Mauleverer Exh Mus (L6b); and Karl Ng (L6b), trombone) have been on outstanding form this term, under the direction of Head of Academic Music, Robert Costin, and completed this concert with strong performances of Percy Grainger’s ‘Danny Boy (Londonderry Air)’ and Gordon Langford’s ‘Polonaise’

As ever, the Swing Band’s festival concert was a resounding success, as was Jazz for a Summer’s Evening during the Commem week (albeit, yet again, indoors, on one of the few days when rain fell) A near full-house audience enjoyed lively renditions of Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Salt Peanuts’, Duke Ellington favourites, and Nico Beeny ATCL Sch Mus (U6c) singing ‘Ain’t that a kick in the head’ and the everpopular ‘Just a Gigolo’ that seems these days to involve audience participation In the Commem jazz evening, the audience also enjoyed the debut performances of the Junior Jazz Band (W illiam Ashworth Sch Mus (5b), bass guitar; James Hambly Sch Mus (3a), trumpet; W illiam Lewis Sch Mus (4d), clarinet; Bamber Mauleverer, trombone; Archie Osborne (4f), saxophone; Benji Rimington Sch Mus (3c), clarinet; Samuel Rippon Sch Mus (4e), clarinet; Charlie Scammell Sch.Mus (3f), trumpet; and James Whiteley Sch Mus (4b); drum kit)

The Chamber Choir’s performance of T ippett’s ‘Five Spirituals’ in the Abbey, along with a stunning performance of Lotti’s ‘Mass for Three Voices’ thrilled the audience: there are some particularly fine tenors in the Chamber Choir at the moment, in some ways compensating for the loss of our treble top line just before Christmas The Close Harmony ensemble’s performances of Adams’ ‘Nearer my God to thee’ and Newman’s ‘You’ve got a friend in me ’ showed great attention to detail and style

Battle of the Organs on Tuesday 27 June, at the other end of the term, featured organists Angus

W illiams, Freddie Senior Sch Mus (5g), Archie Spenlove-Brown Sch Mus (4f), and Zeeshan Mahmud Sch Mus (3f) in performances divided between the two organs in the Chapel with no obvious winners and yet strong performances of music by J S Bach, Stanford, and André The Chamber Choir’s special arrangements for male voice choir of Parry’s ‘I was glad’ and ‘Hear my words’ are mighty works which are particularly effective on the quire organ, whilst Angus W illiams’ accompanying of Brahms ‘Geistliches Lied’ and his conducting of Bruckner’s ‘Locus Iste’ were fine examples of meticulously prepared performances

The Leavers’ Concert on Thursday 29 June was one of the strongest musical evenings that we have had at Sherborne for a long time W illiam Miao gave a stunning performance of Chopin’s ‘Scherzo No 2’; Max Lewis ATCL Exh Mus (U6a) opened the concert with a polished performance of the second movement of James Rae’s ‘Tyne Sonata’; Freddie Folkes Sch Mus (U6a) played Rachmaninoff ’ s ‘Prelude in B minor’ with poise and focus; Angus W illiams appeared on both the clarinet and the piano in music by Mozart and J S Bach/Kempff; Michael Long (U6m) impressed with his interpretation of Chopin’s ‘Nocturne in F major’; Khalid Miah (U6f) sang Quilter’s ‘Go lovely rose ’ with great vocal colour and musical sensitivity; Sam W ithers (U6f) performed Debussy’s ‘Beau Soir’ on the violin with great poise and delicacy; Nico Beeny played Gilbert Vinter’s exciting ‘Hunter’s Moon’ with his usual flair and aplomb, and also rounded the concert off with a performance of ‘Fly me to the moon ’ borrowed from his many performances of it with the Swing Band; Kit Hobbs Sch Mus (U6c) sang Hahn’s ‘A Chloris’ and James Arthur’s ‘Say you won’t let go ’ in Unplugged style; W ill Frost (U6b), one of the strongest basses in the Choir and who sang every service for five years, gave moving performances of Fauré’s ‘Après un rêve’ and ‘Automne’; Hendrik Ashbrooke Exh Mus (U6g) gave what must be one of the more refined and mellifluous performances of Ireland’s ‘Sea Fever’ that we have heard in pupil recitals and accompanied sensitively on the piano by Angus W illiams; and a vocal ensemble had been put together to sing Palestrina’s ‘Sicut cervus ’ in a chamber performance

The annual Gala Concert was a tour-de-force of musical performances by some of the larger ensembles in the School In one hour and ten minutes of music, the W ind Band, Chamber Choir, Brass Band, Close Harmony ensemble, Symphonic Strings, and Concert Orchestra gave high-quality performances of music by Holst, Earth W ind & Fire arranged Murtha, T ippett, Gabrieli and Barry Grey, Leonard Cohen, Greig, and Kabalevsky

The annual Patrick Shelley Music Competition for Advanced Instrumentalists on Sunday 25 June was adjudicated by Old Shirburnian Dominic Wheeler (h 88), conductor and Head of Opera Studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama The overall winner of the Patrick Shelley Cup was Angus W illiams, and the winners of the individual classes were W illiam Miao (Piano), Archie Beardsell (L6f) (Brass), Max Lewis (Woodwind), Angus W illiams (Singing), and Gareth Kwong (Strings).