Year Eleven Concert Delights Audience

The final Virtual Concert of the Lent term took place on Tuesday 30 March, with twelve Year Eleven pupils performing. For the first time, several of these performances were pre-recorded, enabling students to perform with a live piano accompaniment in Perrins Hall or Main Hall, before the films were streamed to the audience.

Saffron Crump began the concert by singing Lovin’ Dat Man (from Showboat by Kern and Hammerstein) with great control and elegance. Emily Weller played Peterson-Berger’s Sommarsång on the flute with a gentle lyricism and Benjamin Sears sang Stars from Les Misérables (by Schönberg and Boublil) with the power and dedication required by this particular musical theatre classic.

Tobey Butler offered us the first live performance of the evening, with his rendition of Telemann’s Vivace from Fantasia in G minor, TWV 338 on the piano, utilising nimble fingerwork to realise the complex, contrapuntal Baroque textures. Grace Read confidently performed Christopher Gunning: Agatha Christie’s Poirot on her saxophone before Aoife Smith sang Still Hurting, from The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown, with a befitting sense of poignancy and sadness.

Lydia Jackson gave a mesmeric piano performance of the beautiful Rue des trois frères by Fabrizio Paterlini, following which Nicholas Kaleniuk channelled his inner Fagin with a rousing rendition of Lionel Bart’s Reviewing the Situation from Oliver! Benjamin Sears performed for a second time, this time live on the ‘cello from home with Vivaldi’s iii. Largo – iv. Allegro from Sonata in E minor, RV40, after which Lucas Hancock played Benda’s Sonatina in A minor, evoking the different moods and colours in the piece effectively.

Menna Sutton’s violin performance of C A de Beriot’s Adagio from Concerto No.9 in A minor, Op.104 provided a moment of calm and serenity before Isla Tallon inspired us all with her generous performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Climb Ev’ry Mountain from The Sound of Music. The concert closed with a final live performance, this time by Benjamin Weller who played Philip Lane’s jazzy Struttin’ At the Waldorf on the piano with a great sense of verve and energy.

Many of the pupils performing in the Year Eleven Concert are taking GCSE Music this year and have recorded, or will record, their concert piece as part of their GCSE evidence. It was excellent to hear and see them perform to an online audience and we thank them all for a lovely evening.

Mr Jonathan Soman, Director of Music