3 March 2010
This was a momentous occasion: not only was it the first opportunity to celebrate Abingdon’s ten-year link with the charity AGAPE working with under-privileged children in Moldova, but it was also the chance to hear Abingdon’s three vocal ensembles together in one concert.
After pre-concert drinks the audience settled down to a varied programme of music spanning songs from the British Isles and Eastern Europe. The Chapel Choir set an impressive tone, starting the concert with a beautiful arrangement of an English folk song, The Water Is Wide, arranged by Simon Whalley. Their programme also included a Czech carol and a very sensitive setting of a Moldovan folk tune for the choir, arranged by Humphrey Thompson. Perhaps their most dazzling performance was that of the Three Hungarian Folk Songs, which had been learned from memory and involved some very fast rhythmic singing which was performed with seeming ease!
The School Choir’s contribution began with a tricky Moldovan song arranged for treble voices. The twenty-strong First and Second Year members of the choir sang with character and excitement, and dealt well with Miss Matthews’ suggestion that the piece should get faster and faster – and when you’re singing in Romanian, that’s more than a little challenging! The programme continued to use different combinations of choir members – next Freddie Stott gave a haunting unaccompanied verse to open the English folk song, Black Is The Colour, before being joined by the rest of the choir, and he showed real skill in bringing the piece down to a controlled whisper at the end. A quartet of soloists, Henry Jenkinson, Joe Mason, Alistair Nicoll and Caspian Mitchard, performed a slushy love song, Vino, Vino. Miss Matthews was disappointed to learn that the translation was not ‘Wine, Wine!’, although there was a wine-related song, Tai, Diri, Diri, performed by the tenors and basses later in the programme; strangely, the boys had no difficulty imagining they were portly Moldovan wine-drinkers – the character required to give the song the necessary rugged spirit ... Certain individuals deserve special mention for taking on solos within the School Choir programme: Henry Jenkinson performed the solo in La Umbra with total commitment and expression, supported by a strong vocal trio of Ben Haveron, William Hewstone and Robert Brooks. Kelvin Poon, Robert Noyes and Will Abell were another triumphant trio. And it was not just the senior singers who took solo roles: Adam Hargreaves, a First Year at Abingdon, confidently performed the first verse of She Moved Through the Fair, an Irish folk tune.
The well-known confidence and polish of the Abingdon Academicals was very much in evidence in their programme. All of their items from the British Isles were arranged by Abingdon School members: Joe Mason set Scarborough Fair and Waters of Tyne, which were immaculately performed and with such sensitivity, and the Welsh melody, Suo Gan, arranged by Simon Whalley, seemed to be perfectly suited to the eight voices of the Academicals. Their foreign explorations were particularly wide ranging, and finished with the rhythmic feat that is the Geographical Fugue, impressively performed and unusual especially in that it is spoken not sung.
There was a surprise. Little tends to be known about Moldovan music in this country, but one Eurovision-esque phenomenon – well known to so many - just had to close the programme. Sometimes referred to as the ‘nu ma nu ma iei’ song, Dragostea Din Tei, was performed in full costume by Toby Marlow and Charlie Bateman, our lookalikes of the Moldovan band Ozone, with choir accompaniment, rhythm section and smoke machine. The singers gave it their all and the audience seemed to find the spectacular (or is that spectacularly cheesy?) choreography entertaining, and happy strains of ‘miya hee, miya hoo’ could be heard as the audience left the auditorium. Just one worrying question remains: did Charlie and Toby really own those outfits?
Over £700 was raised for AGAPE and will go towards funding a summer camp for Moldovan children to the Carpathian Mountains in Romania.
Jenni Matthews
