8 November 2018
The second Thursday evening after half term provided us with an opportunity to hear some 15 excellent solo performances from a range of talented senior musicians representing three areas of instrumental teaching in the school – woodwind, strings and piano.
The first half of the concert was dominated by some superb piano playing – first, from Laurence Peverall, with the Toccata by Khachaturian in a fluent and expressive performance, mature beyond his years. The following items included Timmy Chiu (Scarlatti’s Sonata in E K162), Bentley Cook (Chopin’s Prelude in B minor), James Healey (Merikanto’s Valse Lente), Josef O'Connor (Mozart’s Sonata in G K283 – Andante) and Jonathan Pannett-Smith (Maykapar’s Tarantella).
The remaining two items in the first half were oboe performances; Iain Storrie in a beautiful performance of the first movement of Marcello’s D minor Oboe Concerto and Oliver Glover in Hoffmann’s technically demanding Song Without Words. Both these players know how to make a lovely sound and they played with both great musicianship and style.
After the interval we had an opportunity to hear the progress of our strings, starting with Hugo Payton (cello) playing the Bourrées 1 and 2 from Bach’s C major Suite. Our violinists included Andreas Lo (Debski’s Cantabile), Nicholas Raptakis (Handel’s Sonata in A), Dashiell Hathaway (Böhm’s Introduction and Polonaise), Jonathan Pannett-Smith (Dancla’s Variations) and Jamie Robson (Telemann’s Sonatina).
Our thanks must go to all our performers this evening and their accompanists, Mariette Pringle and Lynette Stulting. It was a great evening!