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Our musical year  kicked off with the final of our annual House Music competition, which saw Hanchen (Year 7) awarded the top spot in the Junior competition and Michael (Year 13) crowned the overall Young Musician of the Year. A week later, our A Level musicians performed their solo recitals, 8-minute programmes that constitute the performing component of their Music qualification. Another week later and Mr Hann led a concert of solo performances by our miss senior singers. As has become tradition, the evening culminated in special solo performances by the Year 13s and the Barbershop. 

 

To end the Spring Term, we had the Spring Concert. The first half of the concert included lively performances by our various wind bands, Wilson's Sinfonietta, Clarinet Ensemble, and the Junior and School Choirs. The second half opened with a beautiful rendition of Panis Angelicus by the Chamber Choir, which set the stage for a full performance of Prokofiev's 'Peter and the Wolf' by Wilson's School Symphony Orchestra. This was a demanding piece for the orchestra, which virtuosic solos for the woodwind, French horns, and percussion, and lyric melodies and tricky effects for the strings. Evan (Year 13) provided expressive narration, and on stage, the characters were represented by puppets created by Old Wilsonian Nicolas. Students from our Drama Department learned the challenging the art of puppetry to bring these impressive figures to life. Dramaturgical assistance was provided by Old Wilsonian Autumn, scenery by artists in our Year 9 GCSE cohort, technical assistance by Sachin (Year 10), and lightening by Ben (Year 11). A work of this scale takes even more people than our usual concerts, and the Music Department would like to thank everyone involved for their considerable effort and unwavering commitment.  

 

Day Two of this term saw the return of the Year 7 Showcases. Every student in Year 7 performs in two showcases each year--one in the Winter and one in the Spring. Students in forms B, C, and D performed on Wednesday, and G, H and S performed on Thursday. The audiences were delighted by the range of solo, small group, choir, and wind band performances, with both evenings culminating in an new arrangement by Mr Kramer of Taylor Swift's Shake It Off. This certainly got everything dancing in their seats! 

 

Rounding off the 'season,' the Chamber Concert brought together a range of smaller ensembles, including three string quartets (two of which are comprised of students in Year 7 only!), two guitar ensembles, our folk group Skiaull, and woodwind and brass groups. String Sinfonia gave a powerful rendition of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins and Cello, featuring Mr Lissimore on the harpsichord, and on violin, George (Year 7), Keynes (Year 8), Lewis (Year 10), and Rohan (Year 10), and on the cello Weldon (Year 8). Barbershop led by Mr Hann performed a beautiful arrangement of Jeff Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’ with poise and delicacy and showed the strength of the voices with Sarah Quartel’s ‘Wide Open Spaces.’ The evening culminated with another energetic arrangement by Mr Kramer of the Mario Theme ‘Jump Up, Superstar!’ for the Odyssey Big Band, featuring soaring vocals by Antonio (Year 13). 

 

The Autumn Term was jam packed with musical events. We welcomed our New Year Sevens and they begun learning their new instruments. Our year seven singers began their expert vocal training.

Ensembles have been well attended and it is a joy to see our students taking part in extra curricular musical activities.  

Many of our students went up to London on organised trips enjoying concerts at Cadogan Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. 

At the end of November or Year Seven Musical Showcase events were a huge success- parents were astounded to hear their children perform at such a high level after such a short time. The Charity Winter Concert is always a highlight of the year and this year's was no exception. A wonderfully varied  programme  from Holst to Alan Silvestri, The Who to Igor Stravinsky left the audience in no doubt that Wilson's is indeed Music.