The Salopian no. 160 - Summer 2017

SCHOOL NEWS
21
Traditionally, the Salopian New
Year Calendar has begun
with our annual visit to Emmanuel
Church, Didsbury, where some of
Shrewsbury’s most talented musicians
have performed a programme of
Chamber and Solo repertoire as
part of a highly successful and longstanding
Coffee Concert series. This
always attracts a large and discerning
audience, used to students from the
Royal Northern College of Music, and
young professionals performing for
them. The fact that we are invited
back year after year to perform
is testament to the quality of the
music here at Shrewsbury, and the
professionalism which they display in
public performance. This year, as ever,
there was much to enjoy, including
movements from Stravinsky’s ‘Soldier’s
Tale’. Hindemith’s Trumpet Sonata, ‘The
Shepherd on the Rock’ by Schubert,
beautifully sung by Sophia Price, and
much more.
Later in January saw the return of
one of Shrewsbury’s most recently
departed and talented musicians, Henry
Kennedy, in concert with his Tyburn
Trio. In this he was partnered by Milly
MUSIC
Forrest, soprano and Andrei Illushkin
on piano. All three are currently
studying at the Royal Academy of
Music, and all three are making names
for themselves there as outstanding
performers. Henry showed what a very
fine Clarinettist he has become, and the
sizeable and appreciative audience in
the Maidment were evidently entranced
by the virtuosity and musicianship of all
three performers. This was the first of
four major school-led events involving
Old Salopian Musicians, and the link
between the School and our Musical
Alumni is something that I hope we
can really foster in the years ahead.
The inspired evening devised by James
Fraser-Andrews which celebrated
the town’s links with the WW1
poet, Wilfred Owen, is reported on
elsewhere in the magazine, but suffice
to say this was a wonderful evening of
poetry and music, the one informing
the other, and at times a truly moving
Elegy to those “Doomed youth” of
Owen’s generation. Especially poignant
was the setting composed by Dan
Powell of Owen’s poem “The Letter”,
in which a young soldier in the British
Expeditionary Force writes home to
his wife, desperately trying to shield
her from the horrors of war unfolding
around him as he writes. This was sung
by Dan himself.
Then it was off to the Barber Institute
of Fine Arts at Birmingham University
for another wonderful performance
of Chamber and Solo repertoire in a
concert featuring again some of those
musicians who had performed earlier in
the term at Didsbury in Manchester.
The Barber concert hall is one of the
finest Chamber venues in the UK, and
the building, which dates from the
1930s, is a wonderful example of pure,
untouched Art Deco. The acoustics
sparkle, and it was lovely to be able
to hold a reception beforehand in
these terrific surroundings; something
definitely to be repeated another year
with hopefully even more Salopian
parents and friends able to attend.
It has been a tradition now for many
years for there to be at least one major
piano recital given by a distinguished
professional pianist as part of our
Season of the Arts at Shrewsbury. This
has been made possible in recent years
by the extraordinary generosity of the