Music Events this Term

There are many events planned for this term and with the older boys and girls away taking their exams the focus will in large part fall on the younger boys.

Firstly, this Friday and Saturday, however, the older pupils will be to the fore when we take part in a performance of Handel's Messiah - but with a difference. This performance, brought together by Inner Voices and a variety of other London schools will mix Handel's original settings in with Quincey Jones' amazing rearrangements of Handel's music, as made famous on his album Soulful Celebration. Our Big Band and Chamber Orchestra are providing the accompaniment whilst our Sixth Form Choir is singing alongside the other choirs.

The concert is being given twice, on Friday and Saturday evening at Union Chapel and there are tickets available if you would like to attend. Contact Mr Hansell for them. 

On Wednesday 1 May the Schola Cantorum are giving a concert of Renaissance polyphony, drawing on the music from Sixteenth Century Italy, Spain and England. The concert is being given in aid of the Catholic Children's Society and starts at 7.30 pm, at St James's, Piccadilly. Tickets, £10 (£5 concessions) are available from the School or online at the School's Website, or direct from St James's, Piccadilly.

When the older students go on study leave the focus then falls on the younger boys as we put together our Junior Ensembles Competition, to be held at 6 pm on Wednesday 19 June in the New Hall. This is many people's favourite musical event of the year, when as many boys as possible get up and play in ensembles of all kinds.

Prior to that, on Tuesday 21 May, there will be Junior Concert, allowing the larger Junior Ensembles (Second Orchestra etc) chance to shine. This will also be in the New Hall at 6 pm.

In the middle of June we will for three days be hosting the Cinncinatti Boys Choir whilst they are touring in the UK. They will sing a joint concert of Britten's music with the trebles and altos of our Schola Cantorum on Thursday 13 June and also sing at the Lower School Mass on the morning of Friday 14 June.

That weekend, on the 16 June, the Schola trebles are to join with the Lower Voices of Eton Chapel Choir in a joint Evensong, being given in Eton College Chapel. 

Meanwhile, throughout the term, we have boys singing in three professional opera productions, Die Zauberflote and Gloriana at the Royal Opera House and La Boheme at English National Opera.

The Schola Cantorum will sing the Vigil Mass at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday 6 July. In addition, the Schola is to record a new CD in Douai Abbey on 28 and 29 June. 

The Summer Concert will be held in Addison Hall on Wednesday 3 July.

And the year will end with the musical, which this year is to be The Pyjama Game.

Further details of all these events will be available from the School. 

The St Matthew Passion, March 2013

On Tuesday March 26 the Vaughan's School Choir performed JS Bach's St Matthew Passion. The choir was joined by Nicholas Mulroy as Evangalist and Nicholas Warden as Christ. All other roles and arias were sung by members of the choir.

The St Matthew Passion is one of the great monuments of Western art and it was an enormous challenge to tackle it with the School Choir, one that dominated the whole of the Lent Term.  But the pupils rose to it magnificently, gripped by the drama of the music and aware, surely, of the greatness of the music that they were engaged with. At the concert we were very pleased to be joined by 25 young singers from Larmenier and Sacred Heart Primary School who sang the ripieno line in the opening chorus.

Performing the St Matthew means that the Vaughan has now sung the three great choral masterpieces of JS Bach in recent years, the other two being the St John Passion and the B Minor Mass. This performance of the St Mathew Passion was perhaps especially memorable in that the soloists were pupils, no fewer than 13 in total, all of whom sang with great repose and confidence. 

I hope soon to be able to post on the blog audio highlights from the concert but in the meantime here are the final two minutes of the evening, part of the closing chorus, We Bow our Heads.

Here are some photos from the evening, taken by Weenson Oo.

Schola Tour of Poland: Part 3

The closing days of the Poland Tour were especially memorable, involving the Schola singing several services, one live on Polish National TV,  and a concert in Krakow.

On the Friday morning we traveled to Corpus Christi Church in Krakow, to sing for Mass and gave a short recital afterwards. Corpus Christi is a 15th Century church attached to a monastery and the snow made for a dramatic setting as the Schola walked from the cloisters to the church to sing the Mass.

It was colder inside the church than outside but the Schola sang very beautifully nonetheless, including a mass setting by Palestrina, some chant, a Regina Coeli (conducted by a member of the choir) and O Sacrum Convivium by Tallis. At the end of Mass we gave a short recital, including Handel's Zadok the Priest.

That evening we sang a concert in St Katherine's Church, Krakow. We were fortunate to have a large and appreciative audience, including a local School Choir, who opened the concert with a Polish National Song. The audience were especially charmed that no fewer that three members of the choir were able to speak to them in Polish!

The programme of the concert was as follows:

Zadok The Priest HWV 258

Zadok the Priest

And all the people rejoic’d

God save the king

George Frederick Handel (1685-1759)

Civitas sancti tui

William Byrd (1540-1623)

Crucifixus a 8

Antonio Lotti (1667-1740)

O Vos Omnes

Pablo Casals (1876-1973)

Exultate Deo

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594)

Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)

ORGAN SOLO - Prelude in C, JS Bach (1685-1750)

Ave Maria

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Hymn to the Virgin

Benjamin Britten (1913-1975)

Ave Maris Stella

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)

Ave Maria

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)

The King Shall Rejoice HWV 259

The King shall rejoice

Exceeding glad shall he be

Glory and worship

Thou hast prevented him

Alleluia!

Here are two videos from the concert:

O Vos Omnes, Pablo Casals

A Hymn to the Virgin, Britten

The following morning, Saturday, we rested in the hotel prior to traveling to the Divine Mercy Sanctuary. This modern Basilica, opened in 2002 by John Paul II, is the resting place of Sister Faustina, who received the revelation of Divine Mercy. The Schola sang for mass on the Saturday evening, which served as useful experience for the following morning's live TV broadcast.

Sunday morning we were up early to travel to the Sanctuary where they were expecting thousands of pilgrims. By the time we arrived there were already many thousands of people there and as Mass approached we had difficultly even getting into the Cathedral through the extraordinary throng of people.

The Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Dziwisz, former personal aide of Pope John Paul II and now Archbishop of Krakow. With 5000 people crammed into the Cathedral and live on Polish TV, the Mass began with the Schola singing Misericordia Domine by Durante, a piece prepared for the occasion, before the choir returned to its more familiar repertoire for the remainder of the service.

The entire service (lasting over an hour and a half!) can be seen on this Youtube video.

Here are some screen shots from the broadcast:

The remainder of the final day was spent exploring more of Krakow and doing last-minute shopping before we went to a restaurant for our final evening dinner. There we were entertained by traditional Polish dancers and musicians - this video captures something of the atmosphere that evening!

The boys made presentations to the staff and gave some very gracious speeches, thanking everyone involved in the trip.

The following morning we traveled back to London. Very many thanks to all involved in what was a wonderful and very memorable week in Poland. Poland itself proved to be a magical location and it was especially wonderful to be singing the Latin music the Schola learns in such a pious, Catholic country. Particular thanks to the staff, Mr Jackson, Miss Wilby, Mr Evans (who accompanied wonderfully as always) and Fr Dominic who added a very welcome spiritual presence.  And huge thanks to the Schola which was focused, hard working, remarkably cooperative and incredibly positive the entire week, always giving of their best and singing very beautifully in often difficult (and certainly cold!) circumstances!

There will be more photographs of the trip available very shortly on the Schola's website. 

Schola Tour of Poland: Part 2

The Schola's tour of Poland continued today with the visit in the morning to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. There had been a lot of preparation for this day, including meeting with an Auschwitz survivor, the wonderful Mrs Ebert, who came to speak to the Schola in March. Nothing can fully prepare you for visiting Auschwitz, however, and it was inevitably a rather harrowing but unquestionably very important experience.

The younger boys explored the more convivial atmosphere of a science museum before we all regrouped at the hotel and then traveled to Arka Pana, in Nova Huta. Nova Huta, the New Town, was built in the 1950s by the Communist authorities as a model village - and as such it was built without a church, the first town in Poland ever to be without a place of worship. The people refused to accept the absence of a church, however, and would gather in fields each Sunday to celebrate Mass, often led by Karol Józef Wojtyła, then Archbishop of Krakow, and of course later Pope John Paul II. Faced with open dissent from the people, the Communist authorities relented and allowed, in the 1970s, the building of the Arka Pana. This is regarded as a major step in the eventual defeat of Communism. The church was built entirely by volunteers and is dominated by a huge sculpture of Christ that was cast by steel workers, using scrap steel.

The Schola sang Mass at the Arka Pana, singing music by Soriano, Palestrina, Elgar and Tallis, and then gave a short recital afterwards to a very appreciative congregation, singing music by Stanford, Bruckner, Handel and Gorecki.

The Christ sculpture can be seen in this short clip from the recital after the Mass (the Schola are singing Bruckner's Ave Maria).

This is the end of Tallis' O Sacrum Convivium, sung during Communion at the Mass this evening.

The Schola's Tour to Poland

The Schola's trip to Poland has so far been very enjoyable with lots crammed into the first three days.

Today we went to the Wieliczka Salt Mines and had the unusual experience of singing in a cathedral, carved entirely from salt, 130 meters underground:

Later in the day we traveled into Krakow and got our first views of this wonderful city.

The first two days of the tour were spent in the delightful town of Zakopane, set in the Tatras mountains. There we sang for Mass at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima and gave a concert at the Holy Cross Church. Here are some clips from the concert:

Poland being still deep in snow was not part of the plan but the boys don't seem to mind too much and so far everyone is well and singing strongly. The food has been quite wonderful.

Tomorrow most of the boys will go to Auschwitz, a trip that we have prepared very carefully for. The youngest boys are going to a science museum and a chocolate factory! Later in the day we will come back together to sing for Mass at the Arka Pana in Nova Huta, a church that played a very important role in the defeat of Communism in Poland.