Woodwind Concert Hits All The Right Notes

The Woodwind Concert was something special, writes David Gorodi, Director of Music.

There were a number of ensembles; the Saxophone Group, the Clarinet Ensemble, the Flute Ensemble and the Wind Quartet, if that’s all there had been the standard would have been high, we would have heard contrasting music and plenty of attention to details and phrasing. However there were a further two duets, both were excellent although Rebecca Bracey and Ella Corlett’s duet was outstanding; they performed Lo! Here the Gentle Lark by Bishop, there is a cadenza section at the end which the girls pulled off superbly. There was also a further eighteen solo performances! There were many brilliant success at all levels and I’d like to mention a few. Jinyuan Zhang performed the slow movement from Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto; this was his best performance so far, a great tone and excellent control of the difficult runs. Charlie Moulder gave his first performance at King’s; he has a delightful tone and gave an excellent performance of Hart’s Lonely and Blue.  There were four others giving their first performance, Ella Dochertty, she played Schmitt’s Rumba du Soir capturing the feel of the piece; Ella played with a strong sense of rhythm and great phrasing, Scarlet Yeandel on the flute - again excellent tone, Freya Fearn who had great control, she played very lyrically with some lovely phrasing and Oliver Cattermole who you could see was completely at home playing in the Jazz idiom. Henrietta Campbell was in top form too; she gave an accurate and detailed performance of the very difficult Scherzetto by Arnold, it was a really impressive performance, a lovely tone, excellent intonation and superb control. Alex Hutton we know has an outstanding voice but his performance of Telemann’s Sonata on saxophone was breath taking, a really lyrical performance with a beautiful and delicate tone, it was almost as though he made the saxophone sing! My congratulations to all those who performed and of course to their teachers, Mr Lambton, Mr Packman and Mrs Pickles. An album and some audio recordings from the concert can be viewed below.

David Gorodi - Director of Music