17 March 2023
On Wednesday evening we held the fourth solo concert platform. We heard performances from students across the full age range of school, all of whom performed to a very high standard.
The concert opened with a tremendous account of the Brahms Clarinet Sonata by David Hrushovski before Lucas Mueller Quintino gave a jaunty performance of ‘Small Town Swing’ on the oboe. We then heard a number of pianists play a diverse range of pieces, including two Beethoven Sonata movements (Rudolph Flossmann and Benjamin Byrne), a movement from Schumann’s Kinderszenen (Toby Williams), a Schubert Impromptu (Jimmy Ip) and, ‘Indigo Moon’ a jazz piece performed by Isaac Wu. These performances were characterful and played with much musicality.
A particular highlight were pianists Walter Liu and Thomas Zhang who offered mature performances of Sibelius’s ‘Romance’ and Debussy’s ‘La plus que lente’ respectively. Both Walter and Thomas played with real care and attention to the sound-world in their chosen repertoire, supported by their technical assurance at the keyboard. They certainly have bright futures ahead of them. It was also wonderful to hear David You’s performance of Bortkiewicz’s ‘Lamentation no. 1’ which was played incredibly stylistically. The concert closed with Adrian Chiu’s exciting performance of the Brahms Cello Sonata and Enoch Wang, playing Albeniz’s ‘Romores de la Caleta’.
It is clear that there is plenty of high level musicianship at Abingdon School, our congratulations go to all the students who performed this evening. Our thanks must go to our accompanist, Lynette Stulting, who tackled both monumental Brahms piano parts, and to all the teachers involved in preparing our students for these performances.
