It was a busy day for the music department on Tuesday, with not one but two concerts played on the road. A selection of our finest chamber musicians and soloists went ‘on tour’ for the day, delighting their audiences at two very different venues in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire.
The first of these was a lunchtime concert in the stunning surrounds of St Albans Cathedral. The concert took place in the nave, the longest in the country, its walls featuring traces of the cathedral’s early Norman roots, back in the 11th century. Ensembles including the Brass Ensemble, Jazz Trio, Piano Trio and String Quartet played a varied repertoire, including Beethoven, Borodin and Bruckner. The programme also included some exquisite solo performances at the piano (Aaron Lim, Upper Sixth), on trombone (Max Leung, Upper Sixth) and voice (Koya Okusaga, Fifth Form, and Isaac Dutson, Upper Sixth).
The concert finished with the Chamber Orchestra, who filled the cathedral with the First Movement of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, taking full advantage of the wonderful acoustics of the space to produce a beautiful, haunting sound. All of the boys involved played and sang beautifully for the audience of listeners. One parent told how wonderful it was “to be able to hear them play and sing within such an extraordinary space. It was a truly memorable occasion”.
Chair of the St Albans Cathedral Music Trust, Lionel Wallace DL, praised the boys, saying, “I had heard a little about Bedford School musicians, before actually ‘hearing’ them. I left the lunchtime concert with the word ‘magnificent’ running around my mind. What an experience!”
However, the day of music-making did not end there. As some of the boys returned to school, those in the Jazz Orchestra headed on to Cambridge to rehearse for the evening concert, joining pupils at St John’s College School for their annual Jazz Evening. The Bedford School Jazz Orchestra delighted the audience with their playing in the first half, and subsequently delighted the St John’s pupils by playing a medley of Disney tunes with them. Their Director of Music, Simon Kirk, said, “The Bedford School Jazz Orchestra gave a first-class performance of a beautifully conceived set of jazz standards in the first half of the concert and our pupils were greatly inspired and energised by what they heard and saw.”
Head of Woodwind and Brass, Dom Childs, was also delighted with the boys’ performance, saying that they “performed superbly with a varied set from swing classics such as Lil’ Darlin’ to new compositions such as The Burninator by British composer Callum Au. We look forward to more collaborations with St John’s in the future. The Jazz Orchestra are now looking forward to their next engagement on 25 April at the Bedford Independent Everyday Heroes Awards.”
