MGS Summer Concert 2022
Posted on: April 28th 2022School News
Congratulations to all pupils who performed in this year's Summer Concert, held in the Memorial Hall. There was a fantastic variety of pieces with pupils from all ages in the Senior School, with music including Raider's March performed by MGS Wind Band and Hedwig's Theme performed by Saxophone ensembles.
Rob Carey, Director of Music, commented: "It was lovely to hear over 70 pupils from years 7 to 10 perform in the Memorial Hall and share what they have been practising. The concert featured performances of some of our smaller ensembles, namely saxophone groups, clarinet ensembles and percussion group. The larger ensembles of Wind Band and our Lower and Middle School String group, ARCO, ended the evening with Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk and My Shot from the musical Hamilton with a vocal solo from Shai P in Year 10".
He added: "Riccardo S in year 9 performed Debussy’s Prelude No.2 Violes on the piano. Earlier in the year he was adjudged to be the winner of the advanced Piano class in the MGS Music Festival, a class which had over twenty entries from across the school, all of grade 6 standard and above. Also featured in the programme were three excellent original compositions from some pupils in year 10: these were Growing Joy for two clarinets and piano by Shai P, I Was for vocal quartet and band by Solly T and Edge of the World by Joe R. Joe has recently been featured on Blue Peter for his composition and song writing as a music badge winner".
Year 10 pupil Solly T started writing his own musical called "Ranjit" when he was 12 years old in November 2019, and finished it last year. He described his experiences of composing during lockdown: "Lockdown was a difficult period for lots of people, but writing ‘Ranjit’ made my lockdown experience a lot more bearable. I came up with the lyrical motif: ‘Racism is a six letter word’, which highlighted the fact that if James Miller, the racist president, could accept the diversity in the letters of racism - ‘his favourite word’, surely he could accept the diversity in mankind. I used the letters of this motif as a structure for the musical: The first letter of each song’s title would begin with R, and then A, and so on. This meant there were 22 songs. Recently I added a 23rd song for the bows/finale. Writing the plot came pretty naturally to me, and after I had blocked what happens in each song, the song-writing process began".
The story of the musical begins in the disadvantaged slums of Mumbai, where an aspiring journalist, Adi, plans to move to New York City with his devoted younger brother, Ranjit, and their parents. After saving up for as long as they can remember, the family abandon their plan after the newly-elected US President, James Miller, enacts a law that prevents anyone without white skin from entering America.
He spoke about his performance in the concert: "A group of talented musicians and I performed ‘I Was’. ‘I Was’ is the 11th song, where the character Greg explains that his upbringing is the reason he is so kind, and why he took the risk of taking Ranjit into his home. Matthew Jenkins, Kev from the harbour, and Ranjit’s brother Adi also discuss how their childhood influenced the person they are today.
Well done to everyone for your stellar performances!
