The Salopian no. 160 - Summer 2017

SCHOOL NEWS
23
Fergus Macleod), and part of the Choir
becoming the English Haydn Festival
Chorus, giving annual performances
of choral music by Haydn, Mozart
and others in St Leonard’s Church,
Bridgnorth accompanied by some
of the UK’s finest period instrument
players and working with soloists of
international standing.
This April the choir gave a terrific
account of the St John Passion in
Shrewsbury Abbey, with Henrike
Legner (OS) singing the soprano solos,
and Alex Mason and David Joyce
being very much key players in the
accompanying ensemble. Next year we
will return once more to Birmingham
Town Hall for a joint concert with
school musicians and choristers. It
should be noted that the Community
Choir are also the most loyal supporters
of concerts involving pupils performing
during the year, and we are hugely
grateful to them for that very supportive
role that they play every term.
No report on Music since the start of
the year can ignore the return visit
to the School of yet another great
Old Salopian musician, pianist Galin
Ganchev. James Fraser-Andrews’
eloquent review, published on
the School website, describes this
beautifully and in detail. Suffice to say
that Galin has lost none of his youthful
power and musical charisma and
magic. Indeed it has all come on even
further during his first year and a half at
the Royal Academy of Music, where he
is studying with Professor Ian Fountain.
He can fill the Alington Hall with both
an audience and the most ravishing
sounds, and if fate is kind and there are
just rewards for the years of hard work
that he has put in and will, I am sure,
continue to do in the future, then a
great career lies ahead for him. He is a
musician with much to say, and one to
whom it is well worth listening.
An important feature of music at
Shrewsbury is the breadth of styles
both on offer to and performed by
pupils. A few years ago we were lucky
enough to have a terrific group of Sixth
Form musicians including Rob and Alex
Collins, Cal Winwood and Sam Wilson,
who led a jazz outfit named Blasé.
They seemed to be in high demand to
play at every function in the diary and
would also play concerts in town and
further afield, including the Edinburgh
Festival Fringe. Recently we were lucky
enough to be able to invite OS Sam
Wilson (M) back to the School with
his current band, Sifaka, who hail from
Leeds, where Sam was a student. Sam
is a wonderful songwriter and jazz
musician, who also knows and loves
his rock and African-tinged repertoire,
which run through the veins of Sifaka’s
music. It was a great evening, enjoyed
by a good-sized audience of townsfolk,
staff who remembered Sam from his
days here, and pupils. He, like other
OS singer/songwriters such as Charlie
Straw and Luke Lloyd-Jones amongst
many others, is really a name to look
out for, and Sifaka are well worth
more than a second listen. Sam plays
keyboard, flugelhorn and shares the
lead vocals with Mared, a fabulous
singer from Wales, who fronts the band
with her amazing vocal range.
We were also so lucky to be able
to offer current pupil Arthur Yu (SH
UVI) a full evening piano recital by
himself this term. This took place in
the Maidment Building, where we now
have a second wonderful Model D
Steinway, now looking pristine having
had its casework recently completely
refurbished in Poland, and with much
restoration work having already been
done last year. It is a magnificent
instrument, and one to which Arthur
brought his own brand of pianistic
magic. A more fullsome review of
his recital has been published on the
School website.
Like Galin before him, Arthur is a
wonderful pianist and thoroughly
deserving of his scholarship to the
Royal Northern College of Music, where
he takes up a place later this year. To
hear a pupil play both the mighty B
Minor Sonata by Liszt and Chopin’s
C Sharp Minor Scherzo in the same
programme, alongside many other
substantial pieces of repertoire, and all
from memory, was simply wonderful.
And finally, with the quite literally
dying last notes of Purcell’s masterpiece
Dido and Aeneas ringing in our ears,
so wonderfully sung in May by Sophia
Price and a talented cast of singing
students, all pupils of Jonathan May and
Kathryn Turpin, I can bring this musical
ramble to an end. It has been quite a
journey since the start of the year, and
there are more musical tales to tell that
must, for reasons of editorial space,
go untold, but that have also played a
part in keeping the musical life of the
School buoyant and fulfilling for all
those involved, either as performers
or audience. Above all, much of this
musical achievement has only been
possible through the hard work,
training and inspirational teaching of
the wonderfully talented team of music
teachers that we are lucky enough
to have working for us at the School,
and also the huge efforts of the pupils
themselves, who give tirelessly of their
time in what must be one of busiest
school environments in the country.
Floreat Salopia
John Moore