The first few weeks of the Trinity Term!

The start of next term is rather hectic with a number of events coming close together.

Before we start term, on Saturday 9th April, the Concert Band will travel to Manchester to play in the finals of the National Concert Band Festival at the Royal Northern College of Music. To win through to the National Finals is a major achievement and we wish Miss Wilby and the Band all the very best for this important occasion.

The following day at 1.30 pm the Big Band gives its first performance at a new venue, the Half Moon in Putney. This pub is the sister pub of the famous jazz venue the Bull's Head in Barnes where the band has appeared many times over the past sixteen years or so. It will be great to play at a new venue - tickets are further details are available on the Half Moon's Website.

Two days later the Schola will sing Evensong at St Paul's Cathedral. Although frequent visitors to Westminster Abbey recently, singers from the Vaughan have not sung at St Paul's Cathedral for a number of years and so it will be wonderful to return to the Cathedral for the service which begins at 5 pm. The Schola will sing Howell's Collegium Regale Service and Balfour Gardiner's Evening Hymn.

The following week, on Thursday 21 April, we will hold the School's annual Easter Concert, which this year is a performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah.  This dramatic Oratorio, that portrays the major events in the life of the great prophet Elijah. Among the episodes are the resurrection of a dead youth, the bringing of rain to parched Israel through Elijah's prayers and the bodily ascension of Elijah on a fiery chariot into heaven. Perhaps the most dramatic episode is the contest of the gods, in which the true God consumes an offered sacrifice in a column of fire after a failed sequence of frantic prayers by the prophets of the god Baal.

For the performance, sung by the School Choir, we will be joined by four wonderful soloists, Sarah Fox, Diana Moore, Peter Davoren and David Soar. This will be a wonderful evening and I hope that everyone will be able to join us at St James's, Spanish Place, starting at 7.30 pm. Tickets are available on the door.

The following week sees the Schola sing a concert as part of the Brandenburg Festival at St Clement Danes on the Strand, the church of the Royal Air Force. The concert is entitled Faire is the Heaven and the Schola will sing that masterpiece by Harris alongside a variety of other great choral music including Rheinberger's Cantus Missa in E flat and the famous Miserere Mei by Allegri. The concert starts at 7.30 pm.