What a fantastic week of Crompton House music!
It started with the Senior Choir singing Choral Evensong at York Minster. This is always a thrill but this year was even more of a challenge as the date seemed to clash with a wide variety of other activities. However our choir was augmented by ex-staff members Mr Whitehead, Mrs Tamworth and Mrs MacAlpine. It was lovely to see so many parents in the congregation as well as Mr Pickford who made a special journey to support the choir.
Three days later the Senior Wind Band travelled to Birmingham to play in the National Festival of Music for Youth. Under the baton of Mr Meaden the band played at their very best and those in the audience in the wonderful Symphony Hall were thrilled by the pupils’ musicianship. The band played Oregon by Jacob De Haan and That’s A Plenty arranged by John Edmondson.
Back up to Manchester, the Year 13 students in the band performed miraculous changes for their Leavers’ Prom!
6.30 am on the following day was the start of a most frantic day of music interspersed with long periods of boredom on the M6. The school orchestra, which involved many instrumentalists who had already performed twice in the week, played in the Adrian Boult Hall of the Birmingham Conservatoire. Under the baton of Mrs Nixon and lead by Tim Hudson of Yr 12 they played melodies from Carmen by Bizet, and Little Suite No.2 Overture by Malcolm Arnold. After this most of the orchestra returned to Oldham while fifteen of our wind players stayed on to play in the Oldham Music Centre Youth Wind Band back at the Symphony Hall.
All the musicians got back together in the evening for the school’s second summer concert at St James’s Church, Derker, a church with great acoustics, which really suited the programme selected by Mrs Nixon. This was particularly true for the choir’s unaccompanied singing of Locus Iste by Bruckner and the orchestra’s finale of Carmen.
Although that was the end of Crompton House’s week of music, for some of our students there was a further day in Birmingham with the combined orchestra of Oldham and Bury Music Centres on the Saturday, and some spent Sunday recording a CD with the Oldham Youth Brass Band!
This was a great week of music, which would not have been possible without the hard work and tireless enthusiasm of Mrs Nixon and Miss Warburton, the support of Oldham Music Centre, and the brilliance of all our wonderful musicians. We especially value the support over the past 7 years of our Year 13 leavers: Ellie Knott, Rachel Emmott, Mary Shanker, Sophie Pegum, Chris Varney, Tom Chipchase, Anna Turmeau, Caitlin Butterworth, Fiona Banham, Will Byers and Tim Davies. We thank them and wish them all the very best in their future studies and music making.
