Summer Term 2021 Highlights
LIVE MUSIC as part of Ports Fest
Saturday 3 July - 1930 - Musicals Past and Present
Sunday 4 July - 1900 - Reconnecting - a concert of familiar and new music given PGS Musicians with the London Mozart Players
As part of Ports Fest’s Remember, Reimagine, Reset Festival the Music Department hosted a weekend of live performances on a large stage in the Quad. Saturday night was a collaboration between Music and Drama and showcased the amazing talents of our musical theatre performers. Musicals Past and Present featured performances from current and former pupils of songs from shows that PGS had put on in the past, along with our future show (Little Shop of Horrors) and contemporary Broadway and West End masterpieces. Sophisticated, assured and professional, this was an evening of top quality solo and ensemble vocal performances accompanied by a fabulous 4 piece band.
Sunday evening’s concert, Reconnecting, reunited our orchestral players and singers with our Associate Musicians, the London Mozart Players, in powerful and celebratory performances of new music and old favourites. There were no fewer than four world premiere performances and over 100 pupils performing during the evening with the London Mozart Players. Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite featured 15 of our more experienced string players playing side by side with the LMP. Year 12 composer, Sam Hemingway’s evocative Intermezzo for Violin and Orchestra showed remarkable maturity in its handling of texture and large chamber orchestra. A brand new arrangement of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Four African Dances by composer and conductor George Morton was given its first public performance (conducted by the arranger). Richard Brown’s exuberant Pageant of the Sea combined PGS Wind, Brass, Percussion and String players on stage with members of the LMP and received its premiere conducted by Director of Music, Gareth Hemmings. Till We Meet Again was a brand new folk song suite commissioned from Assistant Director of Music, Pande Shahov, and received its first performance, conducted by the composer, sung by PGS Year 5 choir, year 7-8 Chamber Choir, Senior Chambers Choir along with singers from Castle Primary School, Meon Primary and Milton Cross Junior school. The concert finished with Fantasia on British Sea Songs. A British institution and staple of the Last Night of the Proms this rousing end to the concert featured new words for Rule Britannia, written by PGS pupils. There could clearly be no other way to end an evening like this apart from inviting the audience to join together singing Jerusalem. The rain held off, the audience of parents, friends and members of the local community clearly appreciated the live performances and it was fantastic and hugely encouraging to see pupils from year 5 to year 13 sharing the stage and performing so confidently.