On Sunday 18th June the Junior Choir gave us a wonderful Prom Concert. The programme was very varied, with solo songs spiritedly accompanied by Helen Swift on the piano, a medley of solo instruments some of them also accompanied by Helen, some choral and part- singing and finishing with extracts from The Sound of Music, with the audience joining in the last song, a lovely and moving rendering of Edelweiss. What came over loud and clear, was how confident all the children were. Wearing their black and white Junior Choir uniform they all bounced up to the centre of the space just below the steps to the choir stalls, carrying their various instruments – or none if they were to sing. We had two cello pieces, Summertime by Gershwin and the Ode to Joy by Beethoven, two piano pieces, Bartok’s Dance and Philip Hawthorn’s Space Walk Rag which, among several other pieces, was new to me; two flutes, The Mocking Bird, which is anonymous, and Doo Doo by T. Boehm, (another piece new to me), one clarinet, Passing Time by James Rae and one violin, Guiseppe Sammertini’s Canto Amoroso. That left seven solo singers who sang a broad variety of songs, some joyous, some sentimental and some reflective.
During the service, earlier that day, several members of the Junior Choir had been formally given their surplices, so recognising their membership, while others had been upgraded to a higher category of achievement. Their several performances were a fitting justification of the confidence we all place in them and of the enormous amount of work Helen does with them. She is very much to be congratulated. We have listened to the Junior Choir over the years and over the years their performances have got better and better, as their confidence has grown. This is true of the choir as a whole, but two people in particular deserve to be individually mentioned, they are William and Jo, both of whom sang with clarity and feeling and with voices that are a joy to hear.
More please!
Rachel Nugee
Junior Choir Summer Prom Concert
Rachel Nugee