A Symphony of Science for House Music

The 2025 House Music Competition filled the Performing Arts Centre with energy as each House united its musicians to form a band. After weeks of dedicated rehearsals, pupils took to the stage last Friday—coinciding with World Periodic Table Day—to deliver performances inspired by this year’s theme, ‘Science’. Upper Sixth musician Daniel Foster reflects on his House Music experience in the report below.

“It was Sunday 26 January when I received the email from fellow pupil Ivan Innocent. He had assembled a dozen musicians from Ottley to perform the greatest rendition conceivable of ‘Spaceman’ to “secure our rightful spot in first place!” A week later, I got another email: a new section had been prefixed to our show, and I needed to “come for a few minutes to rehearse Cantina Band” in period three. Things were getting serious. Ivan kept working assiduously, honing our arrangement and, in the end, he was proud of the “great range of music” and said, “it’s amazing how much we were able to put together in just a couple of weeks!” It was true; bass, guitar, trombone, saxophone, violin, flute, vocal (melody and harmony), and drum parts were all learned quickly and played well – Barney Dunnett even learned his piano part by ear! But then disaster struck. The harmonisation of the free science lessons theme, which the horn section were due to ring out in triumph at the end of our performance, was awful! We scrambled to write down and transpose the melody with help from Ben Fisher’s perfect pitch – but I got mine wrong, someone’s harmony still clashed, and all the instruments on one line just didn’t sound clear. But solutions can always be found – and in the end when Ben played the line as a solo, we were satisfied we had reached the best result.

When it came to performing, little can be said except that it was great fun. Theo Mason found words for the feeling of playing together and how it “evoked a newfound joy and appreciation for music” in us, where Michael Lui commented that “the bustle of the audience gave an incredible atmosphere” and that “there was great camaraderie present in each House”. The competitive aspect certainly elevated this: Michael told me he was “inspired… to score as many points for our House by any means”, and it seems to me that a desire to win was a significant drive for us all to play our best, to get involved, and to look past any anxieties around performance. That last part must have been especially true of the younger performers – who were one of the highlights of the whole process. Music is a fantastic opportunity for people who would otherwise never meet or work closely together – Millie Young thought “it was really special to get the younger performers involved as we got to meet new people and discover their talents”, and I couldn’t agree more.

When Friday came, Wylde were well prepared for their opening act with props for nearly every lyric in Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’. The attending skeleton and matching lab coats, goggles, and blue shirts kept the theme apparent, and Izzy Hadley, who introduced the songs, was proud that they had chosen songs not just based on the titles but the lyrics. The decision to dress their Head of House as The Wicked Witch of the West for a section of ‘Defying Gravity’ showed notable inventiveness.

When it came to our turn in Ottley, we had a plan to play the ‘Cantina Theme’ from ‘Star Wars’ as the instruments were set up – to smooth the transition. As someone who was on stage, I cannot comment on the efficacy of that reasoning, but I do know that Mr Soman was ‘terrified’ when he found himself still on the stage when we started. We had a few technical difficulties – a part of a saxophone spontaneously fell off, and the keyboard was set to transpose into a different key. Still, the audience had no reason to know as the band’s tight musicianship and varyingly ebullient or sensitive vocal performances from singers showed no flaws on the ‘Big Bang Theory’ theme or ‘Spaceman’. What our performance could be said to have lacked is a certain flair and commitment to showmanship which subsequent performers displayed by wearing Science lab coats and goggles – which in hindsight we could have grabbed from the backstage stash.

Whiteladies’ performance was met with cheers before it even began when the audience was told that Sam Taylor had learned to play drums specifically for this event. With only five instrumentalists, Whiteladies made some strikingly creative decisions. While the rhythm and wind sections were augmented with Sam, Sofia Stolt doubled instruments with both bass and cymbal crashes on the periodic table song, and Arthur Hasling took a short vocal solo in ‘The Scientist’ by Coldplay. Mr Joyner made a guest appearance with the periodic table in hand. It was particularly good to be in the audience for this song, as Michael Liu does not play an instrument, but feeling that audience participation was a big factor, he thought that “swaying would be the ideal thing to do”.  And when he started swaying on stage, the audience followed suit.

Elgar had by some margin the most impressive lineup; despite having three less performers than Wylde, the aggressive wall of orange covered in lab coats, goggles, ties on foreheads, huge wigs, and a centre-stage singer with head entombed in a large tinselled star was quite imposing. The nine singers took a lead in the wavelength song and passed lines between small groups to great effect in ‘Counting Stars’ – but it was the violins, cello, keyboard, and glockenspiel which made the transition to ‘A Sky Full of Stars’ seamless. The simplicity of the three dance moves was a particular strength.

The results: Wylde placed fourth, Ottley were ‘robbed’ of our clearly deserved position by finishing in third, Whiteladies came second, and Elgar were overjoyed to come first. Lucas Reid, who organised Elgar and arranged their music – a job which deserves to be recognised – was more magnanimous than the House Captain, when he said “As much as I’d love to take credit for the victory, everyone’s equal participation and dedication in showing up to each rehearsal, learning their parts outside school, and enthusiasm (especially when we won) is the true reason we performed so well and enjoyed the whole experience”. There was a range of reactions from other Houses and  Millie Young from Whiteladies confirmed she had “really enjoyed all of the performances and thought everyone gave it their all”; as instruments and equipment were carried back to the Music rooms, it seemed to me that everyone was pleased to have taken part in House Music, and enjoyed the experience.”