As is often the case, the Hilary term is one of the busiest terms for the Music Department and the musical life of the school. Indeed, this term’s music-making was hugely successful! On 25th January, and for the first time in several
years, a group of pupils attended the Oshwal Academy (Junior High) Recital. This is an annual event featuring pupils and ensembles from different schools. Pinkey Mhajan(J) performed ‘Dream a little dream of me’ on voice whilst
Reeyan Gosrani(C) performed a solo on the saxophone.
A week later, we were thrilled to host the London College of Music practical examinations (after a three-year hiatus). A full day of exams featured every level from the Step level to the Diploma (including Rani Sumaria(E)).
One of the largest musical events, in terms of pupils involved, must be the Inter-House Music competition. This was held on 9th February and, with Covid restrictions eased, around half of the the school was participating. This was, arguably, the best-ever edition with almost two hours of music and so many new performances, but, ultimately,
the overall winners were Jipe with Magadi running them incredibly close! For the soloists, the judges deemed the following pupils to be the best overall within their category:
- Best Junior Instrumentalist = Darsh Shah(M)
- Best Junior Vocalist = Baraka Wakaba(C)
- Best Senior Instrumentalist = Ronav Vora(C)
- Best Senior Vocalist = Neha Shah(J)
The Young Musician’s Competition made a welcome return to ‘live’ performances at Kenton College in mid-February with the Preliminaries. We had a healthy number of competitors in the Solo and Ensemble categories and, as a result, I was immensely proud that we achieved six Finalists to go through to the Finals on Sunday 5th March. This was easily our best-ever performance in this competition with results in the Finals as follows;
- Finalist (Intermediate Solo) – Ruchi Raja(E) (Piano)
- Winner (Intermediate Solo) – Reeyan Gosrani(C) (Saxophone)
- 2nd Position(J) (Open Ensemble) – Flute Trio (Wanjiru Kibuchi, Kheya Shah & Katanu
Muindi) - 3rd Position(C) (Open Ensemble) – Saxophone Trio (Aarav Patel, Ngumo Kibuchi & Reeyan
Gosrani) - 3rd Position(J) (Senior Solo) – Dia Khimasia (Saxophone)
- Winner (Senior Solo) – Samyak Raja(M) (Violin)
Our final event this term, the Hilary concert, took place on Thursday 16th March, with performances from our School Ensembles, our Young Musician’s Competition Finalists and a range of other solos and ensembles. It was,
without a doubt, one of the best school concerts I’ve witnessed in my time here. It also featured a guest performance from a visiting guitarist, Sam Brown, who was the soloist in the Nairobi Orchestra concerts which took place on Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th March at Peponi House Preparatory School, involving Mr Laight (conducting) and Mr
Wataka (clarinet).
