New House & Priory House Concert Has The "Wow" Factor!

One of the (many) highlights of being Headmaster at King’s is attending the variety of musical concerts that take place most weeks. The standard and the variety of Kings’ music is remarkable and at each concert I enjoy settling into my chair, after a busy and complex day at School, and let the pupils’ music take over. I find the concerts a mixture of relaxation, pride and wonder at the ability and confidence of each of our performers.

The New House & Priory House Joint Concert was no exception. I knew that we were in for a treat, given that Priory had won the Inter-House Song, and had performed at both Hazlegrove and Port Regis assemblies, while New were the overall House Music competition winners.

The concert started with the New House vocal ensemble performing the haunting ‘I Found’, expertly led and guided by Oscar and culminated with the final performance of Priory’s six-part harmony rendition of ‘Somebody to Love’. Rebecca arranged and conducted what must be the most impressive House song ever produced by pupils at King’s. Oscar and Rebecca were rightly thanked in person by Mrs, Simper and Mr. Marshfield. So the concert started with two accomplished winners of the Inter-House Music competitions but between these two performances the audience were treated to high quality solos and duets.

All impressed, and many duets performed together after minimal practice, but one would never have known. It would be wrong to pick out highlights, so I won’t; rather I will leave you to choose your highlights as you can watch the concert below. Special mention however must go to two of the performances. Firstly, the joint Priory-New Choir who showed how strong King’s choral tradition has become, given that two of the seven house were capable of putting on such a crisp, cheerful and confident rendition of this year’s Choir favorite, “Lullaby on Broadway’. Secondly Mrs Ashworth's clarinet ‘solo’ became a sextet as she was joined by Mr. Marshfield, Miss Swindall, Mrs. Simper, Mr. Beverly and Mr. Gorodi, each with their own clarinets. It is hardly surprising that the Priory and New House pupils could put on such a wonderful concert given that the House staff themselves are so talented. So it was another treat for me as Headmaster and a concert that will live long in the memory. My thanks to the boys and girls of New and Priory. An album of photos from the evening along with a video can be seen below.

Ian Wilmshurst - Headmaster