Abingdonian 2020

38 The Abingdonian Solo Instrumental Competitions Senior The Senior Solo Competition this year was characterised by some excellent performances from all of the contestants, all post-grade 8 musicians. The standard was extremely high and several of the performances were given from memory. The adjudicator was Mr Peter Foster, who is Director of Music at Oxford High School. A well-established local musician, Mr Foster had the unenviable task of comparing a wide range of musical instruments and repertoires. The pianists included Daniel Zhang (Mozart’s Sonata in Bb), William Bywater (Schumann’s Intermezzo from Faschingsschwank Aus Wien) and myself. We also had the pleasure of hearing the fine cello playing of Oliver Simpson (Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata, 4th movement), which was exciting and technically demanding, as well as the nimbly played saxophone of Josef O’Connor (Monti’s Czardas). Preludium by Paul Hindemith is the introductory movement to the set of 24 pieces, Ludus Tonalis (‘Tonal Games’). In performance, it often is accompanied by the following fugue, although I did not play it on this occasion. This was part of the repertoire that I had been studying for my piano ABRSM graded exam, and I thought it would be an interesting choice to enter into a competition. Honestly, it was risky, as the music is rather odd at times, and it can be difficult to convey its intricacies in a performance. An inexperienced listener can often be thrown off by a lot of Hindemith’s music, it being of the 20th century era. This set in particular was composed in 1942 during the composer’s visit to America. The mood of the music changes many times; the movement I played is probably the most varied of the set. Together with this comes a high specificity of dynamics, which I felt I conveyed well. It was important for me when preparing for the competition that all the instructions written by the composer came through clearly, and as such the performance had to be very expressive. The opening, for instance, consists of a single line that cascades downwards with increasing speed, each note accented individually. It is not beautiful. This is a sudden, quick start, meant to grab attention and it was crucial that it was executed to perfection. My favourite section of the piece is near the end, where a short phrase is repeated low down on the piano, and the chords on top gradually change, getting louder and louder, until it suddenly drops again and the piece ends in calm. In his adjudication Mr Foster gave generous compliments to everyone and found many interesting points of development for us to consider. We were kept guessing until the end as he found it difficult to separate the top three performances. Third place went to William Bywater, and second to Oliver Simpson, who both played beautifully. I was delighted to be declared the winner. Nicholas Raptakis, 6BS Intermediate On the 5 March I was part of the Intermediate Solo Competition. I was told about it by my drum teacher a couple of weeks before and to be honest I had no idea what to expect. I had recently done my grade 7 and had passed with distinction so it was the perfect time to have the competition because you had to have done grade 6 but not 8. I had thought of some options for pieces and decided to go for one of my grade 7 pieces. I played all of them and I decided to go with Toxicity by System of A Down. So I practised. Again and again. I did need to refresh it in my mind as it had been some time since my exam in November. On the day, I had a nice surprise of meeting the adjudicator who happened to be Mrs Jamison, head of music at Headington School - and the wife of my tutor! I had my own setup with my drum kit (Tama Starclassic), mixer (Xenyx Q1202) and speakers (DBTechnologies BHype10”) which meant that I was a bit more comfortable with the setup compared to using a school kit. I just played to the best of my ability and was really pleased to be announced as the winner. A tip: even if you are not, make sure to make it look like you are enjoying yourself (eg. smiling!) Oscar Scannell, 1AJ