Music plays a prominent part in the life of Abingdon School. Over half of the boys have instrumental tuition and are taught individually by a staff of four full-time and some forty visiting teachers. Class music is part of the normal curriculum and music is studied by a large number of boys for GCSE and A level examinations. (Currently twenty-eight and twelve respectively.)
Instrumental tuition is offered in all the orchestral woodwind, brass, percussion and strings, together with piano, recorder, saxophone, guitar (acoustic, electric and bass), bagpipes and drum kit. Individual singing lessons are also available, and candidates are prepared for choral and organ scholarships to Oxford and Cambridge – in recent years, a regular number of such awards have been won by boys at the school. From September 2009 the charge for each thirty-minute lesson is £16.00. Instruments may be hired from school at a cost of £65.00 per term for each instrument, for up to three terms. In the case of bassoon, double bass and tuba, a longer hire period may be possible.
Strong emphasis is placed on participation in the many musical activities of the school, which include First Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Second Orchestra, First Wind Band, Brass Band, Second Wind Band, Big Band, Chapel Choir, Trebles Choir, Joint Choral Society (with St Helen’s School), “Drum Circle” (African drums) and a large programme of chamber music for all instruments. The latter is a particularly strong and prominent element in the department’s activity. A number of boys represent the school in the Oxfordshire County Youth and the Thames Vale Youth Orchestras and several boys have played recently in the National Children’s and Youth Orchestras and National Youth Jazz Orchestra.
Further afield the school’s orchestras and chamber ensembles have performed at the Oxfordshire Youth Prom, at London’s Royal Festival Hall in the National Festival of Music for Youth and at St John’s, Smith Square, in the Pro Corda Chamber Music Competition Finals. In each of the last ten years the school has won prestigious places in the Finals Concert with senior boys playing trios by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Shostakovich, Glinka and Dvorak.
International concert tours have characterised the department’s recent activity: in 1995, the school’s First Orchestra undertook a concert tour to Central Europe, giving concerts in Warsaw, Krakow and Prague; in 1996 the Big Band toured South West France and Normandy. In 1997 the school’s Big Band released a compact disc of professional quality, ‘Abingdon School Plays Jazz’. 1998 saw the Chapel Choir and Chamber Orchestra touring Italy, giving liturgical and concert performances in Lucca, Florence, Padua and Venice (Basilica di San Marco), whilst in the summer of 2000 the Big Band undertook a happy and successful ten-day concert tour to Athens and the Greek Islands. In 2002 the orchestra embarked on a tour of Vienna, Prague and Budapest with a party of some seventy-five boys. In 2004 The Big Band accepted an invitation to play at the Europe Day celebrations in Abingdon’s twin town of Argentan in Normandy. Our most ambitious venture to date was our epic Orchestral Tour to the Far East in 2006 when we gave concerts in Hong Kong and Beijing. Our successful Big Band tour to Tuscany in July 2009 will be followed by an orchestra concert tour to Bielefeld in July 2010 when we hope to link up with our German exchange school, The Ratsgynasium.
The school presents some fifty musical events each year, ranging from informal concerts, at which boys perform solo and small group items, to the yearly full-scale concerts of the orchestras, bands and Joint Schools Choral Society. The latter comprises Abingdon boys and girls from St Helen’s and St Katharine’s together with staff, parents and friends of both schools. Works performed recently by the Choral Society have included Bach’s St Matthew Passion, St John Passion, B minor Mass and Christmas Oratorio, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Mozart’s Requiem and Solemn Vespers, Poulenc’s Gloria, Rossini’s Stabat Mater and Petite Messe Solennelle, Verdi’s Reqiuem, Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Bernstein’s Chicester Psalms, Duruflé’s Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana and Mozart’s Waisenhaus Mass. Rehearsals are on Mondays, 7.30-9.00 pm, and all will be welcome to come along and join; this year’s repertoire comprises Fanshawe’s exciting African Sanctus for a concert on Saturday 28 November.
The Chapel Choir comprises some thirty-five of the most experienced singers in the school. The choir has earned a considerable reputation outside the school as a result of its numerous visits to sing services at churches and cathedrals as far afield as Southwark, Worcester and Chichester in addition to fulfilling its primary role as a focus for worship within the school at chapel services. The Chapel is equipped with a fine three manual Walker pipe organ, rebuilt by Sebastian Meakin Organs. A three manual digital organ by Compton is available for practice and teaching purposes in the Music School.
Whilst it is the function of the Chapel Choir to produce devotional music, there also exists a Close Harmony ensemble, the ‘Abingdon Academicals’, a group made up of about a dozen more experienced choristers, which sing at regular school events. A complete Lower School Choir also sings in the Christmas Concert and a First Year Choir at their special concert in the Summer Term. The new School Choir involves boys from all year groups singing secular repertoire such as African Songs and Spirituals.
In addition to the many music-making opportunities afforded at the school, boys are also strongly encouraged to attend the music department excursions to recitals, operas and concerts in Oxford, London and Birmingham as well as the professional concerts, which are held in the Amey Hall. The music department joins regularly with the school’s drama department in the production of junior and senior musico-dramatic works, recently Jesus Christ Superstar, Sweeney Todd, Cabaret, Oliver, The Magic Flute and West Side Story (November 2009).
The work of the department is actively supported and assisted by the Abingdon School Music Society, a body of parents who, in addition to raising funds for school music, organise their own social and musical events. Parents, especially those with musical sons, are warmly invited to join the society; active committee members are particularly welcome.
Michael Stinton, Director of Music
September 2009