Joy-filled Christmas Concert marks the end of a wonderful term of music
The Christmas Concert at West Road was, as ever, a brilliant affair and involved a quarter of our senior school students.
Kicking off with Khachaturian’s catchy ‘Waltz from Masquerade Suite’ performed by our accomplished Senior Orchestra, the concert continued with two delightful bird-themed pieces by David Stone, performed by our Training Orchestra. We had a heart-warming rendition of Ivor Novello’s charmingly nostalgic ‘We’ll Gather Lilacs’ by Tilly T. who had been commended for her performance at our recent Young Musician of the Year competition.
In the second half, Minnie S. gave a complementary and highly accomplished vocal performance of ‘Sister Act’ as a teaser for our musical production in early February. Other solos included Upper Sixth pianist, Imogen C., performing Debussy’s ‘Reverie’ for which she won Young Pianist of the Year.
We had a brilliant bravura double act by violinists Jasmine L. and Davina Y. performing Bach’s ‘Concerto for two violins in D Minor’ accompanied with verve by our Chamber Strings. Our accomplished duo reappeared to play the gentle accompaniment for Elgar’s song, ‘The Snow’, performed with heart-stopping beauty by our chamber choir, Allegro; that song beautifully complementing their other performance of Vaughan Williams’ ‘O My Dear Heart’.
Our youngest singers, Serenata, sang Bob Chilcott’s ‘Mid-winter’ with touching beauty, accompanied by a harp and flute duo. By contrast to these graceful and meditative songs, we enjoyed the razzmatazz of our Concert Band’s lively rendition of ‘Fairytale of New York’ and 'Lord of the Dance' and Training Wind Band’s delightful ‘Baby Elephant Walk’ and ‘Christmas Swings’ as well as Cantore’s super renditions of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’, ‘Balulalow’ and ‘Winter Wonderland’ all of which got us thoroughly into the Christmas spirit.
The joy-filled concert culminated with our traditional audience participation in ‘The 12 Days of Christmas!’
Huge thanks and congratulations to all involved and in particular to Mrs Emma Fisher and to our Director of Music, Mrs Sonia Gears.