Category: Woodbridge News
The Swing Band was in exceptionally fine form, playing as the guest of St Andrew’s Church Felixstowe for its Christmas Concert. The ten-piece set included such wonderful classics as Glenn Miller’s Little Brown Jug and Moonlight Serenade, some Brubeck and Gillespie, and to end a fabulous addition to the repertoire: Coldplay’s God Put a Smile Upon Your Face. With solos drawing warm applause within each piece, and with uncontrollable foot-tapping the order of the day, the audience clearly appreciated the silky skills and high energy of the Band, right down to the big hint of Christmas included in the last few numbers. Brilliant! Thereafter Harrison Cole became accompanist and then organist, for the Felixstowe Children’s Choir (who did a brilliant job with their Christmas songs – all impressively sung from memory) and for the audience, leading us all graciously and expertly through the season’s first carols. A lovely afternoon: our thanks to St Andrew’s for their hospitality.
Theo Bimson and Rosie Greenway were excellent impresarios and hosts to a wonderful evening of Chamber, solo and ensemble music… and even a bit of modern, jazz and improvisation. It really was a sublime programme: rich, varied, pacey, thoughtful, contemplative, cheeky, witty, virtuosic, joyful, and beautifully played throughout. Pupils coming together to support each other, and producing something so successful in the process – it rather sums up the music department, pupils and staff alike. So, congratulations to Theo and Rosie, their friends and peers, and to Mrs Williams as guest accompanist, on an evening which embraced works from Telemann to Sheeran, Summers to Saint-Saëns, Gershwin to Strauss, Williams, Powlesland, Schumann and more. The audience could not have been more delighted or better entertained.
Cross country
Well done to the 32 runners (from both The Abbey and the Senior School) who competed in Saturday’s County Schools’ Cross-Country Championships at Alde Valley School, Leiston. Although the conditions seemed clear, the wind was a force to be reckoned with and made the course that little bit tougher for our athletes. Many congratulations go to the 22 runners who came in the top 40, therefore gaining a place in the next round. However, a special mention must go to Kit Evans Lombe and Nathan Goddard, who both came first in their respective races, and Sarah Barker who came third in hers. The minor boys had some cracking results, with 7 out of the 9 runners through to the next round!!
Athletes who gained top 40 places
Minor Girls: Cecily Royal-Dawson 9th, Bea Thomas 11th, Isabelle Eaton 15th, Amy Goddard 20th, Molly Marshall 31st & Ella Walker 32nd.
Minor Boys: Kit Evans Lombe 1st, Henry Dinwiddy 5th, Charlie Turner 8th, William Franklin 13th, Tom Turner 17th, Thomas Harper 18th & Tom Martin 25th.
Junior Girls: Sarah Barker 3rd, Amy Graham 4th, Milly Buckingham 7th, Sophie Graham 17th & Ianthe Hill 40th.
Junior Boys: Nathan Goddard 1st, George Rufford 8th & Daniel Davies 38th.
Senior Boys: Connor Grant 19th.
The next round is on Thursday 14th January at RHS. Good luck to those involved!
Thank you to all the parents for their support, and especially to Mr Goddard who has worked so hard with our runners to help them to achieve so highly.
Our junior musicians, quite rightly, had St Mary’s bursting at the seams, the audience (which generously donated £238.43 to East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices) delighted to be part of celebrating a fine term’s work. The concert also happened to give us the first hint of Christmas Woodbridge-School-style…
The Seckford Sinfonia’s Marches, first Through the Mud, then Hungarian, were delightful, and raised smiles and pulses in equal measure. Some of the percussion instruments were clearly as much fun to play as they were a surprise to hear! Corelli’s Vivace, played by the Year 7 string quartet, was wonderfully dignified by contrast, yet equally spirited and impressive.
Soloists Joanne Garnett (clarinet), Rebecca Yardy (violin) and Charlotte Dinwiddy (flute) were each quite outstanding playing German, Tchaikovsky and Fauré respectively, while Stringvitation, the Flute Group and the Year 9 String Quartet (Boccerini’s Minuet and Trio played with considerable maturity, having clearly benefited from Miss Jessica Hall’s guidance in the strings competition masterclass just the week before) all played with marvellous aplomb and variety further to exemplify the extraordinary range and talents of our young musicians.
And so to the double finale: first the foot-tapping swagger of Just Jazz: great fun and much enjoyed (watching the Year 7s and 8s in the audience bopping innocently and enthusiastically in their seats was a hoot!); and then the Junior Choir romping through the Old Testament via Goliath and Daniel, and ending with… yes… our hint of Christmas: It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Indeed it was, and the joy with which this final number was delivered summed up a wonderful early evening’s entertainment.
Our enormous thanks and congratulations go to all the performers, and of course to the conductors and teachers of the music department under Mr Penny’s sure leadership who have helped them achieve so much.
The Reception children have had tremendous fun in the spaceship role play areas this term. They have learnt how to be astronauts and spaceship mechanics and have flown to distant planets to meet friendly aliens. However it is time to come back down to earth now and the spaceships will be taking off into space for the last time at the end of the week. Hopefully we will see them return to earth next year.
Last Saturday, Pelham Etherington OW played Mozart’s piano concerto in D minor, K466, in the Great Hall of Durham Castle, with the Durham University Chamber Orchestra. His performance was “in fond memory of John Stafford”. He gave an exciting and accomplished performance; dramatic in all the right places, reflective in others, but with an overall sense of the grandeur and architecture of this amazing piece. Well done to Pelham!
This week the children at Queen’s House have taken part in a maths investigation morning. Children in Reception read the story ‘The Doorbell Rang’ and then worked together to find out how to share biscuits out fairly. In Year 1 the children worked in groups to help Pirate Pete organise his four piles of gold bars so that each pile was the same height – but in only two moves! In Year 2 one group read ‘One hundred hungry ants’ and used the story as a stimulus to find the quickest way for 100 ants to reach food by dividing them into lines of equal length. The other Year 2 group used trundle wheels to work out how far we walk to lunch every day. They found out that it was 240m, and worked out that from starting in Reception to leaving at the end of Year 2 the children will have walked 246km. That is the same distance as walking from Queen’s House to Buckingham Palace and back again! The children showed great determination and fun was had by all.
