Musical Delights: Sixth Form Showcase and Evensong at Worcester Cathedral

It has been another busy fortnight in the Music Department, with two performance events from our older musicians. On Thursday 7 October, the Sixth Form musicians treated us to a high-quality evening showcase, with fifteen students performing solos or duets. The programme was wonderfully varied, with mature performances of advanced violin sonata movements being enjoyed, alongside lively dances for violin and ‘cello and emotional songs from the musical theatre stage; jazzy piano and saxophone pieces. The whole evening was immensely enjoyable and we congratulate Isabella Hulbert, James Kitchingman, George Flinders, Lydia Jackson, Lillie Heyburn, Katie Downes, Ben Sears, Aoife Smith, Amelia Wood, George Oates and Rosie Greenwood, as well as our Lower Sixth Music Scholars: Saffron Crump, Menna Sutton. We also congratulate Tobey Butler and Ben Weller, who both performed and organised the event, producing the programme and introducing each item in the concert. 

Five days later, the Chamber Choir went on their first outing of the year to Worcester Cathedral to sing Evensong. Their first performance and service since March 2020, the choir of twenty sang with unity and focus, in the beauty of the Cathedral. The Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis sung were those set by Stanford in C, with the bright choral glory of the Gloria filling the Cathedral space impressively. As well as the traditional responses and psalm, the choir performed as an anthem Fernand Laloux’s Tantum Ergo, a simple and delicate four-part setting of the medieval Latin hymn. With its hushed start and end, the anthem provided repose and space to reflect towards the end of the day. 

Whilst this was the first Evensong for some new members of the Chamber Choir, others are well-versed in singing this service, with James Kitchingman currently combining A Level study at RGS with his position as a Tenor Choral Scholar at the Cathedral, whilst Lillie Heyburn and Martha Burdon continue as Cathedral Choristers, having sung Evensong in July of this year, and which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Please enjoy listening to the service here. 

Several of our students are also now members of the new Youth Choir, based at Worcester Cathedral, who are singing their inaugural Evensong in the Cathedral at 5.30pm this Saturday – all are welcome to attend. 

In other celebratory news, Teacher of Music, Mrs Spencer performed in Symphony Hall, Birmingham, with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus last month at the season’s opening concert, attended by the orchestra’s patron, Prince Edward. Dr James, RGS Teacher of German recently performed Biber’s Missa Salisburgensis with the professional ensemble ‘The Armonico Consort’, in a concert which received a favourable review in The Times this week. 

Congratulations to everyone.

Mr Jonathan Soman

Director of Music