Abingdonian 2018

6 The Abingdonian House Singing The winning House Singing entry this year came again from O’Doherty’s; Fallen by Imagine Dragons. The judge, Mr Gladstone, Director of Music at Radley College, admired the great start, the tightness of the band, the clarity of the words, the variety of dynamics and the brave ending - a calculated risk that paid off handsomely. School House came in second with the song All Star by the unfortunately named group, Smash Mouth. Theirs had a strong energetic and engaging start, some effective legato singing and strong direction from Jeremy Salkeld. The cardboard Shrek cut-out was felt to be somewhat unnecessary, however. Third place was given jointly to Southwell-Sander’s with Sweet Caroline and Lower School with I Just Can’t Wait to be King from The Lion King . The former house was complimented for its successful use of harmony in the introduction, a stylish trumpet countermelody, and a well-controlled performance with an excellent conductor in Henry Muller, who brought great attention to detail in sustaining notes. Lower School were congratulated for some effective choreography, a confident sound and strong piano accompaniment, even though they were in danger of over-ramping the “cute” factor with an appearance at the end of a stuffed toy Simba! Congratulations to all the 1000 participating singers, their housemasters and their conductors! There was a great atmosphere throughout the afternoon of enjoyment, enthusiasm and healthy competition. Michael Stinton Some of the conductors share their thoughts on the competition below: Austin House Inevitable was the difficulty of the job, but we all pulled through - (probably) not with regards to musicality, but definitely in terms of enthusiasm. Winning almost seemed not an option, given the fierce competition between ten Houses, but even more daunting was to stimulate the excitement of the House - after all, not everyone likes to sing, and House Singing makes this fact all the more evident. I wanted my House to win (which explains the ambitious arrangement of the ‘mashup’), but I had an even stronger desire to make House Singing 2017 a unique and memorable one for the House. Rehearsal after rehearsal, we scrapped more and more of the harmonies I had written in, but with this came precious and valued enthusiasm, rarely seen in this annual event. Before I knew it, we were all practically “chanting” (not to