As part of the heavily ambitious programme for Senior Chamber Choir, the girls have been preparing a masterpiece of symphonic choral repertoire, Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. This giant work uses the full forces of a symphonic chorus and full orchestra, as well as characterful professional solos, to bring John Henry Newman’s evocative poetry to life. The music is bold and grand with moments of tenderness, as well as nasty snarls. It is an honour to have prepared such a brilliant work with the students, who rose to the challenge brilliantly.

We were delighted to join forces once again with Francis Holland, Regent’s Park and Harrow School, bringing together our choirs to form a giant sound. Our students have been fantastic in the preparation of this work, where the chorus are asked to assume characterisations from tender, beautiful and angelic, to bold, rich and operatic, to snarly, nasty and demonic. The singers took to the music superbly and it was a pleasure to join with hundreds of other singers, including excellent professional soloists. The icing on the cake was the outstanding orchestra, adding to the full and rich timbre which completely filled the Harrow Speech Room. We are immensely proud of Amalia in Upper Sixth who joined the professional ‘Cellists and was a member of the Harrow Orchestra for this joint project.

Following our own in-house preparation, alongside our work for the Spring Concert in the same week, we had three very productive rehearsals, one with orchestra, at Harrow led by Mr Woodcock, the conductor of the project and Director of Music at the school. The concert itself was an explosive experience, with complete full symphony orchestra adding an abundance of musical colour to massed choral sound. Hundreds of musicians performed brilliantly to a full audience in the historic, beautiful Harrow Speech Room, and we are delighted to have been an integral part of this performance. The singers were superb in tackling this dense score, particularly the brilliant semi-chorus, singing in a chamber ensemble alongside FHS Regent’s Park girls and the Harrow boys. The semi-chorus, consisting of the Lower Sixth Singers of Lucia, Allegra, Bea, Charlotte, Amelia and Nola were mature and poignant in their angelic characterisations and we are very proud of them.

Thank you to the whole Music Department for accompanying the girls and assisting in the preparation of this concert, as well as joining the chorus. A fantastic time was had by all and we look forward to planning the next collaborative concert.

Mr Mercer, Director of Co-Curricular Music