Musicians from the school’s Chamber Orchestra and Cecilia Consort performed the annual London showcase lunchtime recital in St. Luke’s, Chelsea on 7 March. The concert opened with Callum Anderson playing the Final from Vierne’s First Organ Symphony, setting a challenge of virtuosic exactness and intelligent understanding which was ably sustained by every subsequent soloist and ensemble musician. Members of the Cecilia Consort, in works by Edward Elgar, Charles Stanford and John Blow, demonstrated a choral integrity and emotive impulse which would be the envy of any cathedral choir. The post-Renaissance dramatization of word-setting in monody and operatic ensemble was beautifully conveyed by Olivia Brett, Immy Welch, Ellie Lester and Georgie Gulliver in music by Caccini and Humperdinck. The concert concluded with a suitably spirited performance of CPE Bach’s Piano Concerto in d-minor by Callum and the Chamber Orchestra.
By Nicholas Gleed, Director of Music
Photos by Josh Grubb, 6.1
