Category: Music

In these ever changing times we are thrilled to still be able to offer a wide range of music and concerts within Woodbridge School.

International violin soloist Emily Sun, was a resounding success, when she visited to conduct a Strings Masterclass.

We are now full steam ahead for our Evening of String Music with soloists from harps to viola and a full range of string chamber groups to whet your appetite.  Please join us on Tuesday 17 November at 3.15pm to watch our live stream of the event.

Looking forward to some festive cheer?  Join the Symphony Orchestra as they delve into the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky to bring you some Christmas Classics.  If ballet isn’t your thing then the Concert Band have a ‘Cowboy Christmas’ to help you celebrate American style!

GOOD NEWS this term is that our ABRSM exams are full steam ahead for November 25 and 26, with all our normal strict COVID procedures in place.

A strong #CanDoMusic attitude is certainly something we are enjoying in these unprecedented times, and can been seen by our termly calendar below, which although slightly slimmer than normal is still very much packed with variety.

To keep up to date with all that is happening in the Music Dept do follow us on twitter @wbridgemusic

And what a perfect summer’s evening it was: the sun setting serenely over the school buildings, and casting a benign and beautiful light on those keen to entertain and be entertained in turn.

With the picnic rugs out and Prosecco popping, this was definitely more Glyndebourne than Glastonbury, although the music did offer nods to both venues in its range (and quality!).  We started with The Seckford Sinfonia (and here may I say what a fabulous job the sound engineering team did in capturing and relaying the music to the audience – no easy thing to give depth and balance to strings, woodwind, brass and timpani across a Chapel lawn).  Youth would have its day, and the youngest of our musicians played with maturity and poise to set the evening off perfectly.  The Senior Brass, Percussion, and Senior Flute ensembles picked up the baton with alacrity and showed just what a musical education at Woodbridge can achieve – not only brilliant musicianship, but also camaraderie, teamwork, and fun – such fun!  Smiles all round!  The Concert Band, Chamber Orchestra and Symphony Orchestra then took us to half way with a tremendous mixture of the epic cinematographic scores, a little pop, a spirited tango and at the end tingle-down-your-spine and spring-to-attention-to-salute Pomp and Circumstance from Elgar.  O glorious times!

Mr Turner then offered us a change in mood as we went more contemporary (though jazz and swing with Just Jazz and the Swing Band predates Zimmer even if not the Pirates and Gladiators).  Foot-tappers aplenty here, and solos too interwoven with fine ensemble play.  Don’t Worry about your Baggy Trousers, they’re Cool…  Fabulous.  And then for a further change of mood we went (and here I show my age and innocence…) ‘pop’: Ella, The Northern Lights, and James taking on a series of immensely impressive covers.  What an evening… it just needed its grand finale to send us off into the night… and here were FourbyFour to offer just that: Lewis, Jonathan, Nathan, Brendan and Anna delivered an outstanding final set of playful, gleeful, and matchless swing and jazz.

The applause flew, like the accompanying bats, into the night and in and out of the Chapel lawn trees.  What a great evening, and what a lovely occasion for so many of our wonderful Year 13 musicians to take a final bow, alongside a lovely bunch of OWs I should add.  We cannot thank them enough for all the pleasure they have given and for all the commitment they have shown: to their music, to the department, to their peers and to the school.  And of course we must thank their teachers as well!  So, to Mr Turner and all in the music department – congratulation! Encore! Bravo!

This was a truly marvellous culmination of an astonishing fortnight of music making.

The individual competition, in its new guise, was a fantastic success: musicians excelling; extraordinary variety; and the full panoply of instruments on display, from drum kit to voice via woodwind, brass, keyboard, percussion and strings.

It takes a brave person to stand, alone, in front of your peers and elders, and perform.  To perform brilliantly adds an impressive twist!  To be judged… is intimidating, or could be.  But under the wonderfully sympathetic, positive and watchful eye (and ear) of our expert adjudicator Mr Ben Parry (thank you, sir, for your skilful and heartfelt judgments) every one of our contestants must have felt appreciated, guided, and enriched.

But winners there must be, and, acknowledging as he did that on a different night, with a different choice of piece, in front of a different adjudicator things might well have been otherwise, Mr Parry chose the following for particular commendation:

Beginner Class:

1st place: Charlotte (flute – No Dice – Paul Hart)

2nd place: Esme (marimba – Menuet in G – J S Bach)

3rd place: Isaac (drum kit – Barracuda – Heart)

Intermediate Class:

1st place: James (cello – The Gadfly – Shostakovich) 

2nd place: George (double bass- America – Bernstein)

3rd place: Ellen (oboe- Gavotte – Boyce)

Advanced Class:

1st place: Lewis (tuba – Concerto for Bass Tuba – Vaughan Williams)

2nd place: Jenny (violin – 3rd Violin Sonata – J S Bach)

3rd place: Billy piano – Sonata No. 4 – Beethoven)

Writing this, I notice only now that nine instruments and eight composers are represented, five boys and four girls – how’s that for diversity and a true reflection of the glorious spectrum music offers at Woodbridge?

Mr Parry was full of praise for the performers; and Mr Turner added his thanks both to them and to their near-hundred peers who took part in the competition, to all the staff who have supported them on the way, and of course to Mr Parry.  What an evening.  What a finale!

I arrived at 7:29pm… too late, it transpired, for the welcoming jazz quartet!! But they sounded great from the path outside…

And just as they had played with charm, pace, zest and variety, so did all their peers throughout an enthralling and richly entertaining two hours thereafter.

A showcase is many things: a chance to demonstrate snippets, a chance to roll out grander works, a chance to hint at the future, and a chance to celebrate: St Mary’s played host to all these elements and more.  The Seckford Sinfonia summed it up: a hint of Spring followed by a hitching of the metaphorical whites for cricket, football and more as lots of us played spot the theme.  Impressive already, how good will these musicians become over the next few years?  Judging from the Senior Brass – very good indeed!  And so it continued: Just Jazz and the Junior Flutes played with a passion and poise which belied their years; the Saxophone Ensemble and the Concert Band wowed with terrifically accomplished playing parenthesising the spectral ends of law enforcement (Clouseau versus 007!). 

Refreshments secured, we delighted in Cellisti (including Etiane’s elegiac world premier), Cantabile full of smiles and excitement, the soaring Senior Flutes, delightful Junior Brass, charismatic Clarinets and, by way of the grand climax, the utterly fantastic Swing Band featuring a garland of mini solos which would have graced the grandest of stages.  What an end to a wonderful concert.  Our thanks, as ever, to all the performers, to Mr Turner and his team of inspirational teachers and conductors, and to you in the audience for your generous and enthusiastic support.

It was marvellous!  

Friday’s concert in St Edmundsbury Cathedral was as magnificent as the setting.

Beethoven – the first symphony – composed by a young man… conducted by a younger one!  Lewis – here he stood as a Year 13, yet he had the poise of a past master, the calm authority of someone far more experienced; and an orchestra in front of him at the top of its game.  The music soared, the melodies sang and danced, the audience sat in rapt attention.  And that fourth movement, with, in Lewis’s own words (yes, he wrote the programme notes as well!), its ‘brazen ending’!  No wonder we stood – not just for Beethoven, or the orchestra, but also for Lewis, for youth, for passion and for virtuosity.

Follow that.

No sooner said than done, sir.

Mozart’s Requiem.  Oh my goodness.  The soloists – Miss Weston, Amy Lyddon, Jonathan Hanley and Kieran Rayner – breathtaking!  The orchestra, led my Mrs Scott-Smissen – outstanding!  The chorus – well, to say we enjoyed ourselves would be a start… to say we are all no doubt humming away even now, and still sent a-tingle by the memories, would be to get a little closer.  And the audience agreed – once more brought to their feet at the close in celebration of all that is wonderful about the best of music played in the mightiest of settings by the finest of musicians.  Woodbridge School at its best.  Thank you, St Edmundsbury Cathedral for your hospitality; thank you – and congratulations! – to Mr Turner, Miss Weston, Mrs Stafford and all the performers for an unforgettable evening.

This was semi-finals week… my goodness Mr Ben Parry, our adjudicator for the forthcoming final, has a tough job!

Many, many congratulations to all those who have competed in this term’s competition.  Our juniors have set the standard with exuberant and talented performances which hint of things to come; our intermediates have shown the flowering of genius in all its variety; our seniors have simply astonished us with their virtuosity, musicianship and courage.
Three stellar afternoons.

And now for the super-nova evening to come (I hope that’s an appropriate astronomical analogy… it’s a good thing, be sure!)

So, welcome all:

Thursday 28 March

School Hall

6pm for Junior and Intermediate classes, and their adjudication; an interval to draw breath, and then

8pm for the Senior class and a final adjudication

Be there and be bowled over!

We are delighted to welcome Mr Parry to make all the difficult decisions: he is supremely well qualified – artistic director of the National Youth Choir, erstwhile director of music at St Paul’s Girls’ School London, and now assistant director of music at King’s College Cambridge – and his wisdom will, I am sure, add enormously to what augurs to be a marvellous celebration of the many and varied talents of our wonderful musicians.

Photo: Stephen McKay / Framlingham Church

Where to begin?  At the beginning – and our thanks to St Michael’s Church for its splendid hospitality.  Ms Weston welcomed all, and the Chamber Choir raised the roof with O, Radiant Dawn to set the tone for what lay ahead.  It was compelling, mesmerising and full of drama.  Purcell, Parry and Bruckner kept up the momentum marvellously!

Then the Chamber Orchestra under Mr Turner’s baton danced beguilingly on Holst’s Brook Green – the first of their three wonderful visits to centre stage.  Chorum, our new all girls small choir, offered the first of the ‘treats’ with the ever-popular Panis Angelicus of Franck and a less familiar but no less beautiful Mendelssohn, before the full Choir reassembled for some truly rousing Finzi – God is Gone Up – and all the organ stops are pulled out!

A fantastic first half – topped by the second?  It had to be a close run thing.  The orchestra’s Grieg was gorgeous, its St Paul’s Suite quite exceptional (with a showman’s finale to celebrate!); Chorum (Elgar) and the Choir (Palestrina, Victoria, Stainer, and Taverner’s riveting and haunting The Lamb); and then all together now for Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus.  Oh joy!  What an evening!

Many, many congratulations to all the performers, to Mr Turner and Ms Weston (and in absentio Mr Milton ), and many thanks to our audience for braving the wind and rain – it was worth it!

What a time we had!

Thursday at the turning circle: five in the morning doesn’t feel so early when the weather is good and the Coach drivers Chris and Martin are so cheery and welcoming.  Many roads, one ferry and thirteen hours later we arrived in Cologne to a friendly welcome and fine dinner at our splendid Jugendherberge.  The perfect journey preluded a perfect tour!

Friday dawned beautiful – indeed the weather throughout our stay was glorious – unbroken blue skies and crisp summer sun to banish any wintry chill.   The walk across the Rhine towards the soaring Gothic masterpiece that is the Cathedral could not have been more inspiring: the breath-taking space once inside quite overwhelming.  And to think we were not simply tourists here, but guests, choristers for Midday Prayers (after a quick busk outside!).  And the acoustic. Oh my goodness… voices rising higher and higher, further and further.  What a privilege to perform there; what a memory.  Quickly followed by a dizzying ascent to the top of one of the dreaming spires for views to horizons barely contemplated below.  And there was a trip to the famous Chocolate Museum as well.  What a day… so far!  Because soon after we were off to Heimersheim to perform in the ancient Pfarrkirche St Mauritius. A beautiful setting in which a small but perfectly formed and immensely appreciative audience delighted in the Chamber Orchestra’s brilliant performances and the Choir’s equally mesmerising repertoire.  And our reward was a fabulously convivial dinner in the local Hotel zum Stern – no mean feat feeding forty famished folk so (e)fficiently.

Saturday took us to Bonn and a rendezvous with Beethoven (or at least his death mask, his birth house and a host of fascinating memorabilia besides).  The Namen-Jesu-Kirche was fabulous: over three hundred years of history, beautiful spaces, glorious decoration, and another splendid acoustic.  Lily used her fluent German to brilliant effect while the orchestra rehearsed to encourage passing trade to return for our concert.  And another busk in the market square elicited great applause and one besotted baby, transfixed by Miss Weston’s conducting and the choir in full voice.  The evening concert was majestic, presented this time to an audience worthy of its quality – the pews were full and the appreciation rapturous.  It was a wonderful event and our thanks go once again to our hosts for such kindness and generosity.

Sunday meant Koblenz, an enormous statue of Kaiser Wilhelm, a cable car ride above a misty confluence of the Moselle and Rhine to a castle-topped hill across the waters.  And then a quick trip to Andernach for our final concert to be given in the extremely modern Kreuzkirche – unprepossessing from the outside in its concrete carapace, but beguilingly spacious and beautifully wrought on the inside with glorious stained glass and finely panelled woodwork.  The welcome was every bit as warm and welcoming, and the audience passionate and plentiful.  The concert performances of orchestra and choir were as good as they had ever been, and with an acoustic just a little softer than on previous occasions the musicianship was even more brilliantly presented.  Indeed, in response to Millie’s lovely speech in excellent German, the residents were moved to say that they had not hosted such a fine concert in all their long memories, their long and heart-felt applause testimony to the truth of that claim.
Marvellous.. and then it was Monday and a journey equally smooth to bring us and our wonderful memories safely home.

Many, many thanks to Mr Milton, Miss Weston, Mr Turner, Miss Alzapiedi, Mrs Hornsby and Mr Cole for their organisation, conducting (of course!) and care; and many more congratulations to our wonderful orchestra and choir for performing so well, and for being such a pleasure to tour alongside.

Such glorious originality, variety, and coiled enthusiasm – I say ‘coiled’ because for me there is at once something constrained and something utterly liberated about percussion.  The act of striking; the delicacy of caress.  It makes for a fascinating repertoire full of surprise, humour, shade and colour. Yet above all it takes immense skill and no little courage – there is no hiding one’s contribution: everyone is a soloist within the ensemble, every blow owning its distinctive place in the whole.

I have no idea what many of the instruments are properly called (even Mr Milton suggested he has little idea how some are assembled); but then when hand and thigh, whistling lips and reddening palms are added to the orchestration, why should one worry about not being sure how a marimba differs from a … one of the other ones?

Because, really, one is already swept along in the beat, captivated by the rhythm, and entranced by the ebb and flow of sound.  Yes, this was a magical evening delivered by a very proud Mrs Seed and her quintet of wonderfully talented pupils.  And, unusual though it is for me to pick out one in particular, I must mention Jonathan who was at the heart of the action throughout, but most of all was the truly astonishing soloist for Gitano.  Miraculous.

Our thanks to all the performers for a brilliant evening’s entertainment.

Our Sixth Form students, under the expert leadership of their A level music peers and friends, offered the most wonderful evening’s entertainment last Friday to a full and appreciative audience at Woodbridge Library.

Mr Milton mirrored his delight in his introductory explanation (that for once he was only there as an occasional piano monkey) with his heartfelt comments at the end about how this fine cohort of pupils had created something so tremendous together, independent of any need for guidance or encouragement – and what a pleasure, therefore, it had been for him to be able simply to sit back and enjoy the experience.

He was not alone in his enjoyment!

I loved the concert, too, and the appreciation from the audience (Friends of Woodbridge Library, and their friends, as well as our school parents and siblings) couldn’t help but overspill the polite boundaries of applause.  I heard there were tears in the eyes at time; and the murmured rumbles of appreciation for the jazz classics that nodded so poignantly and beautifully to memories of time long gone, to scratchy records and ill-tuned radios, spoke louder than words.

Enough of this!  You should have been there!  And if, foolishly, you missed the chance, then you missed Barbershop and Liszt (virtuosic!); concertos for tuba and for two violins (the musical conversation between the protagonists quite exceptional); you missed Mozart and Brahms, beautifully played and sung respectively; and a chance to be Flown to the Moon.  You missed smooth instrumental jazz and passionate Pergolesi; and you missed Misty Stardust sprinkled with Moondance.  And in a truly delightful bow and curtsey to the eponymous hero of our concert, you missed My Funny Valentine.

Wonderful!  Thank you, Friends of Woodbridge Library for your generous and warming hospitality, and thank you the Sixth Form musicians, for a glorious treat on a bracingly cold winter night!