It was a real privilege to listen to the young people’s performances on this cold wintry evening. There was o lovely mix of instrumental, vocal, piano and speech and drama to take our minds of the darkness outside. I will only be able to mention a few of our students here but a big thank you must go out to all who participated. Harini Sivavakeesar’s piano piece ‘Holiday In Paris’ by W. Gillock was a joy. The beautiful singing phasing, the colours in her sound and all of the tempo changes bringing life to the character of the music were articulated with great style and skill. Meera Batakurki played us ‘Diversion’ by Richard Rodney Bennett. This piano piece was so interesting and took us in all sorts of directions musically. She played with lots of expression and was technically very sure footed. Gauri Batakurki played ‘Allegretto Grazioso’ by Cornelius Gurlitt. This fast little piece was performed with great dynamic interest and was delightfully confident too. Ben Pickering chose a wonderful piece called ‘The Harp Player’ by Sibelius to share with us. A flourish of notes opened this gorgeous performance with spread chords played so well in time just as a harpist would. The chords were so evocative, Sibelius would have been proud. Eleanor Yeomans sang ‘Sweet Nightingale’ a traditional folk song unaccompanied. She was pitch perfect, we wanted more, a stunning performance.

Mrs Hodges