It was a pleasure for us to host the inaugural Joint Concert Platform on Monday afternoon and a special privilege for the current and former Directors of Music from the senior school to be working together for the first time in this way. It was principally, though, a wonderful opportunity for the prep musicians to be inspired by the more advanced playing from the seniors and for the seniors to be reminded of their own earlier musical journeys and to hear the younger musical talent coming up behind them.
In a varied and balanced programme we heard five solo performances from the senior school and six performances from five musicians in the prep school, the music ranging from baroque composers, Handel and Besozzi, to the 20th century’s Prokofiev and some jazz improvisation to finish.
We started with a block of four performances from the prep school musicians – Horace (piano) with Tempo di Menuetto, Daniel (cello) with Putz’s Stomping Boys, Wilson (French horn) with a Spiritual, All Night, All Day and Zephaniah (violin) with Handel’s Allegro. All of them played with commendable fluency.
The senior musicians followed next with Josh (oboe) playing Dring’s rhythmically tuneful Danza Gaya, Chi Hoi (cello) with Saint-Saëns’s serene The Swan, Richard (bassoon) in Besozzi’s Allegro, Theo (French horn) in Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm and the remarkable Ben in Prokofiev’s virtuosic Etude Op2 No 4. The concert concluded with a pair of delightful prep school performances – first, Isaac (flute) in Watts’s Tiptoe and Tango and Daniel once more, this time on piano, with a short but successfully idiomatic jazz improvisation.
This concert was a fantastic initiative and we congratulated and thanked all of the afternoon’s performers, including accompanists, Richard Stafford and Chris Fletcher-Campbell.
