5 October 2011
Abingdon music-making 2011/12 got off to an auspicious start within a month of the start of term, with the first of the academic year’s scholars’ concerts. Pictured here are the evening’s performers.
This concert often a cheering experience, since the departure of a gifted musical cohort at the end of the previous year (Robert Brooks, Ben Etherton, Osman Tack et al) is all too present in the mind and the burgeoning musical talent that is displayed early on in the year is well-timed to allay such fears. This early scholars’ concert was no exception.
Step forward no less than eight gifted pianists, all of whom played without sheet music. And how so much better they were able to become absorbed in their performances and communicate expressively with their audience. The works presented gave us a good Who’s Who of romantic piano composers – Schumann: Carnival of Vienna (Sebastian Johns), Chopin: Minute Waltz (Hector Stinton), and Nocturne in B (Anthony Bracey), Schubert Ab Impromptu (Daniel Tong), Rachmaninov: C Sharp Minor Prelude, Debussy: Snow is Dancing (Thomas Kelly), Liszt Liebestraum No 2 (Leon Wu), Scriabin: Impromptu in Bb Minor (Joseph Ereaut).
We are reminded what a powerful team of piano teachers we have at Abingdon – a truly international team from South Africa, China, Japan, Australia, Thailand and UK – many of whom have experience teaching at conservatoire and in the context of the European Piano Teachers’ Association. We are so lucky to have them with us at Abingdon.
Other performances included some Kreisler: Tempo di Menuetto, played by new Music Scholar, David Chung, with a real sense of performance and a lovely strong violin tone. George Ruck also played the demanding finale from Bach’s A minor violin concerto – with considerable aplomb!
We had three oboe performances, too, first a debut from promising First Year, Ethan Clarke, in Albinoni’s Oboe Concerto, making a really lovely sound in his long legato phrases. Sam Gibb played two movements from a Loeillet oboe sonata with a strong sound and natural musicality and Henry Binning in Mozart’s oboe concerto, slow movement. Naim Peyman seduced us with some legato phrases in Weber’s Grand Duo Concertante – highly expressive playing with that distinctive liquid clarinet sound.
This was a great start to what promises to be an exciting musical year. Our next event is the visit of Levon Chillingirian for a Strings Masterclass on Thursday 3 November. If his last visit is anything to go by, we are in for a treat!
MAS
