Scholars enhance UWC life - United World College of South East Asia

Dunia, April 2010
6
ENCORE!
The Main Hall resounded to the sounds
of our intermediate music ensembles
on Saturday, 20 March. The capacity
audience was treated to a wide range of
entertaining music presented with energy
and enthusiasm by our younger musicians.
The featured ensembles largely
comprised of students from the Middle
School together with some Upper and
Junior School musicians.
The concert was hosted by Grade
12 students, Aliena Haig and Indiana
Sutanto, who seamlessly introduced the
musical numbers. ‘Encore!’ began with
two Javanese Court melodies performed
on the College’s Javanese gamelan by
the Middle School Gamelan Ensemble.
Adorned in traditional costumes the musicians
looked and sounded spectacular
as they presented ‘Cilolo’ and ‘Majemuk’
under the direction of Helen Rhodes, our
resident gamelan guru.
The Guitar Ensemble presented The
Cranberries famous song ‘Zombie’ in a
special arrangement made by the ensemble’s
director, Stefan Merchant. The
guitarists gave a slick performance and
had the audience tapping their feet along
to their lively playing.
After this the Intermediate Jazz Ensemble
wowed the crowd with their renditions of
four upbeat tunes; ‘Blues for Mr. Bump’,
the Count Basie classic ‘Jumpin’ at the
Woodside’, ‘Bop!’ and ‘Frimmin’ at the
Jim Jam’. Improvised solos were given
by; Keshav Pant (tenor saxophone), Rajeev
Sanjeev (trombone), Naoto Mulligan
(alto saxophone), Josh Kim (alto saxophone),
Dipro Bhowmik (guitar), Andew
Liu (trumpet) and Patrick Coombe (alto
saxophone). Each received warm applause
for their invention and stylish playing.
The whole ensemble and their director,
Miles Tranter, should be commended
for achieving an exceptionally high level
of ensemble playing. The future of Jazz
in the College looks assured!
After a break, the concert continued in
more serious mood with three pieces
from the Camerata, the intermediate
string orchestra made up of Junior and
Middle School students. Under the
direction of Ros Lillywhite, the Camerata
which numbers over 60 players, performed
an arrangement of Mussorgky’s
stately ‘Great Gate of Kiev’ from ‘Pictures
at an Exhibition’, a movement from Telemann’s
‘Concerto in D Major’ and ended
in swashbuckling style with ‘The Pirates
of the Caribbean - The Curse of the Black
Pearl.’
Concert Strings, directed by Roos
Seeger, followed with a medley of famous
melodies by Tchiakovsky. This performance
provided further evidence of the
ensemble’s development with a precise
and exuberant rendering of excerpts from
‘The Nutcracker’, ‘Marche Slave’, ‘Romeo
and Juliet’ and, of course, the ‘1812
Overture’. All that was missing were
the fireworks! (Although the bass drum
provided some fairly realistic cannon fire
sounds.)
Another ensemble that impressed at ‘Encore!’
was the Middle School Percussion
Ensemble. Showing great concentration
and determination our young percussionists
gave a thrilling performance of Kachaturian’s
‘Sabre Dance’. Amidst flailing
mallets and whirling sticks Carl Jenkins
and his team emerged unscathed to draw
rapturous applause for their evident skill
and musicianship.
The Band ended the evening with two
dramatic pieces, ‘Rondo for Band’ and
‘Ghost Riders’, under the direction of Carl
Jenkins and Miles Tranter respectively.
Gaurav Thayil on trumpet featured in
‘Ghost Riders,’ taking the solo line in the
more reflective moments in this piece.
Adrian Hill
A little “Chamber Music”
UWCSEA students once again inspired
us with their prodigious talent. This
second chamber concert of the year
was a celebration of their outstanding
musical achievements. The opening item,
Dvorak’s piano quartet ‘Opus 23,’ was
polished and displayed excellent ensemble
playing by Ward Seeger, Tamara
Cave Jones, Haley Jung and Aileen
Gozali. Kaho Hasegawa’s performance
of the first movement of Poulenc’s ‘Flute
Sonata’ was beautiful and displayed real
musicianship. Aileen’s superb technique
was apparent in her performance of
Bartok’s ‘Suite Opus 14’ and Jonathan
Chapman added a wonderful diversity
to this concert with his superb marimba
playing as he performed an arrangement
of ‘The Doll’s Burial’ by Tchaikovsky.
In this concert, it was wonderful to see
Daniel Nishi and Aileen Gozali supporting
their peers whilst developing their
skills as accompanists. A real passion
for playing exuded from the Grade 12s in
their last contribution to Chamber Music
at UWCSEA. Minsu Byun and John Park
will be sorely missed from this event; they
have both been regular participants and
we wish them well as they head off to
new musical pastures.
Helen Rhodes