6 February 2020
Two Abingdon ensembles took part in an inter-school charity concert in Oxford. The senior piano quartet played Dvorak’s Eb major Piano Quartet and the senior brass quartet, performed Iveson’s arrangement of Frere Jacques and Web of Steele from Yorke’s The Shipbuilders’ Suite.
Our piano quartet included Alvin Tam (violin), Nick Raptakis (viola), Oliver Simpson (cello) and Ashwin Tennant (piano). The brass quartet comprised Jake de Jongh and Oliver Hobbs (trumpets), Daniel Barratt (horn), Felix Kind (trombone) and Arthur Boulton (tuba). We joined musicians from Headington School, St Edward’s School, The Dragon, Headington Junior School, Summer Fields, Wheatley Primary and several others schools in front of a full church audience.
The concert had been long in the planning and it was good to join other musicians to raise funds for important charities helping young people receive a decent education and life-changing opportunities both in Zambia (Cecily’s Fund) and displaced Syrian children in Lebanon (Embrace the Middle East). It was a great evening of varied music-making and a very heart-warming occasion.
