Colston's musicians treat us to a"A Night at the Musicals"


The audience in the Chatterton Hall were transported to the West End theatre stage when the Music Department performed its Spring Term Charity Concert, billed “A Night at the Musicals.”

Opening the proceedings and putting us in the mood for what was to come, the Corps of Drums performed a fanfare specially composed by their student director, Sam Crew. The high standard of drumming skill displayed by the Corps set the bar for the evening’s subsequent performances.

The Wind Band were up next and the enthusiasm and obvious enjoyment of these young musicians shone through in “And All that Jazz” (with a fantastic speed change into the second faster section), “Jai Ho” and” Defying Gravity”.  These items proved very popular with the large audience.

	Wind Band

Next came the Clarinet Quartet and playing “Empire state of mind” and “Summer Nights”, both in effective arrangements by clarinet teacher Caroline Wood showed the versatility and skill of these musicians. 

	Clarinet Quartet

The student led Musical Theatre Group sang Cy Coleman’s “Rhythm of life” complete with actions and we look forward to seeing and hearing much more from this group in the future. 

	Musical Theatre Group
	Musical Theatre Group video on YouTube

The String Orchestra looked back even further than musicals to the world of opera, and the audience were treated to two items by English composers: “Rule Britannia” by Thomas Arne and the Rondo form Abdelazar by Henry Purcell.  

	Director of Music, John Shooter, with the String Orchestra

The School choir, effervescently led by Miss Kendall, sang “Little Shop of Horrors” leaving us in no doubt of their enthusiasm for horror, and achieved a big chorus sound in accompaniment to Tom Pieczora’s solo in “Come what may”. 

	The School choir
	The School choir video on YouTube
	Tom Pieczora

The swing band really was cool in their performance of “Cool”. The complex syncopations seemingly proving no difficulty at all to the players. They continued with selection from “We will rock you” complete with audience participation before launching into the theme from” Beauty and the Beast”, a complex arrangement by the contemporary American arranger Gordon Goodwin.  This must be the most complex item the band has ever performed but they pulled it off with aplomb and special mention must be made of the impressive tenor sax solo by Alex Howarth.

	Swing Band video on YouTube
	The Swing Band
	Alex Howarth

Director of Music, John Shooter commented that “The standard of musicianship throughout the evening was uniformly high, a tribute to many hours of dedicated rehearsal and the Colston’s School musicians will have gone home, like the audience, with memories of a hugely enjoyable evening.”