69 The Inter-house Music competition continues to be a landmark event in the Kearsney College community for which the boys’ practice and rehearse with extreme enthusiasm, and a competitive attitude. For this reason, the standard of the event seems to be elevated each year. There were five categories, 50 marks in total, and they comprised: Choir Set Piece, Choir Own Choice, Solo, Duets and House Band. Each House is required to prepare items for these categories which are led by the Director or Overall Manager, the Band Director who oversees all instrumental aspects and the Choir Director. The boys are given a little more than four weeks to prepare for the competition, and they receive no assistance from staff members. For the Choir Set Piece, Sing arranged by Wayne M Grimmer, was selected. The piece is an upbeat spiritual with fast-paced rhythms, complicated text patterns and vigorous articulation that is vocally demanding. Every House presented this quite well. The rules for the Set Piece state that the boys may not change any of the vocal harmonies they may, however, add instruments as they see fit, to make the piece unique to their own style of singing. Each House brought a fresh and different approach to the set piece, which allowed for much variety during the evening. The idea behind the Choir Own Choice category is for the boys to bring new ideas to the table for repertoire that the International Choir may possibly use in future. This category never seems to disappoint, as the boys bring many exciting ideas forward that the choir can certainly use. Pembroke bravely chose the #AmINext theme for their Choir Own Choice, which we’ve seen extensively in the media with the issue of gender-based violence. The Pembroke choir rendered a powerful and though- provoking performance through this theme that touched the hearts of many audience members. INTER-HOUSE MUSIC The House to win both the Set Piece and Choir Own Choice categories was, however, Sheffield, who gave an energy-filled performance which appealed to the adjudicators. The Solo category saw four different, and unrivalled, performances with each house showing their individual talent and skills vocally and instrumentally. Sheffield blew away the audience with Matthew Strauss’ own arrangement highlighting the Game of Thrones theme where he was even blind folded at a stage in his performance. Pembroke was to take the lead this time for the Solo category with Cade Brooks beautifully performing Billie Eilish’s When the Party’s Over. The Duet category was taken by Gillingham House, led by Bandile Makhaye and Ite Machobane. Sheffield ended the show on a high with their mash-up in the Band category. Winners: Choir Set Piece: Sheffield Choir Own Choice: Sheffield Solo: Pembroke Duet: Gillingham Band Sheffield First place: Sheffield Second place: Gillingham Third place: Pembroke Fourth place: Finningley Mr Mars he l l Lombard Director of Music Sheffield Band
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTc3MDU5Nw==