School concerts can often be embarrassing. This one was. Embarrassingly Good! Budehaven's new Head of Music, Richard Paddy, and his department put together a varied selection of classical music which was pacey, stimulating and greatly appreciated by a capacity audience at the John Ward Hall on Thursday, December 4.
Above all, it was an opportunity for over 40 students, and a school choir of the same number of voices, to make music together, and the emphasis was clearly on the value of ensemble performance.
That is why it would be quite wrong to single out individual performers for special mention. It was an unusual concert, in that performers played their pieces, briefly acknowledged the audience applause, and promptly left the stage, which meant that the whole evening moved at a great pace, and never suggested that any one performer was more accomplished than another, or was seeking to 'milk' the applause.
That makes quite a refreshing change from most public performances these days, and it is clearly part of Richard Paddy's philosophy that everyone in a school should be encouraged to make music together to the best of their ability and to obtain the greatest satisfaction from simply playing with other people.
Apparently one of the conditions of appearing in the Blues Brothers performances, to be staged at school on December 17 and 18, was that those taking part in that much more overtly populist show, should be prepared to be part of the classical concert, and ready and willing to help other musicians — all in fact encouraged to enjoy their music, rather than to simply put on a performance to achieve acclaim.
So the audience enjoyed a selection of music by composers ranging from Vivaldi, Bach and Albinoni to Tchaikovsky, Gounod and Grieg, with more than a nod to contemporary music as well, and including a first public performance by Richard Paddy of an accomplished A level composition for piano from a Sixth Form student.
The newly re-generated School Choir sang three sections of Faures Requiem with great sensitivity and clarity of diction, under the direction of Kath Morrison, and Richard Paddy expressed particular appreciation to all the instrumental teachers for their contributions, and especially Barbara Degener, Hilary Littlewood and Kay Batory for the specific work they had done to make the concert a success.
If this is a sign of the quality of music making to be enjoyed from Budehaven in the future, then audiences can be assured of some memorable evenings of entertainment! It was noticeable too, that there were young musicians from the primary schools taking their part, and acquitting themselves very well.
Richard Paddy is vigorously encouraging music making at every age and every level of achievement — school musicians went busking with him in London in the summer — and this reviewer will be sure to put every future concert at Budehaven in the diary; definitely not to be missed!
Promenader