Scotch College

May Concert - the end of an era in sight!

On May 23rd over 500 Scotch musicians, supported by a near capacity audience of some 1200, joined together for the penultimate May Concert in its current form. The May Concert involves more instrumentalists and singers than any other concert in the year, and we have reached the stage where we are simply unable to fit all the ensembles into one concert, and all ensembles are severely limited by time. The result is that the concert is no longer able to adequately represent music at Scotch, and indeed the concert is unable to give the senior ensembles a performance opportunity worthy of the scale of work done during this part of the year. Consequently, we eagerly anticipate the completion of the Concert Hall in Phase Two of the James Forbes Academy, and to presenting more concerts, with fewer ensembles in each, with more time for each ensemble, and therefore shorter concerts - something we will all welcome! That said, this year's concert was carefully planned with the logistics in mind, there were some very slick ensemble changes, and the concert concluded at 10.30 pm. Quite an achievement.

The concert featured all four symphonic wind ensembles, each performed appropriate music for the ensemble's level, and did so most commendably. The George Dreyfus band (under Peter Rickard) and the Symphonic Wind (under Roger Schmidli) both opted for recent works which related well to the students and audience, a suite from Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter respectively. John Officer directed a most enjoyable performance of Vivaldi's Concerto Op 51 by the Henri Touzeau strings, which was followed by the Senior Strings performing Gordon Jacob's Overture for Strings, conducted by Robert Wakely.

The ensemble handled the challenging harmonies and intervals with consummate ease, and displayed careful preparation by its conductor. The first half concluded with the Symphony Orchestra performing two works. The first was the dazzling last movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto - a fabulous performance by Peter Chandler of year 9. With precise finger work and secure intonation, Peter captured much of the essence of the work, displaying a clear understanding of the phrases and contrasts. The work was concluded with excitement and panache, and was ably accompanied by some delicate and subtle work from the orchestra under Director of Music, John Ferguson. The Orchestra then concluded with the last movement of Tchaikovsky's magnificent 5th Symphony, a work which will be played in its entirety at the Concerto Concert on June 22 at Melba Hall.

The second half opened with a great May Concert tradition, initiated a decade ago, that of the whole Year 7 uniting in song. It would be fair to say that this year the enthusiasm triumphed over the intonation, but Choral Director, Andrew Hunter, still managed to capture the spirit of Neil Diamond's classic I'm a Believer.

The Chamber Choir followed this with two traditional shanties, spiced (or should that be 'spliced') with demanding harmonies - sounding superb, and finally the full college choir - having recently returned from Choir Camp a fortnight earlier - performed I Lift Up Mine Eyes by Allen Pote, beautifully accompanied by Oliver Blake on oboe, David Heaton (Captain of Choir) on flute, and Nic Buc (class of '99) on piano. Monday Big Band, under its director, Megan Philip, performed with great polish, having returned from the Generations in Jazz festival in Mount Gambier the previous week where the band played with great finesse. Its performance featured some fine solo work from saxophonists Lachlan Couper and James Sanders, and trumpeter Edward Tudor.

The evening concluded with Showband, directed by Roger Schmidli. The performance had polish and impact, and delighted the audience. Solos from saxophonists James Barton and Christopher Chan, and trumpets Campbell Johnston and Edward Tudor were all played with that special combination of excitement and precision, while David Cheung's drum solo left the kit smoking! Particularly entertaining was Stephen Dower's stunning vibraphone solo in Boogie Stop Shuffle - Lionel Hampton would have loved it!

John Ferguson
Director of Music