Review of the concert at the 2012 Witness Hilton Art
Festival by Keith Millar.
Many of our schools are celebrated, and receive considerable
publicity, for their prowess on the sports field. In fact, a Durban newspaper
dedicates a whole page every week to school sports reports and results.
Unfortunately, the same is not true for Arts and Culture.
And this is a great pity because judging by what was on show at the Soundscapes Concert at the Hilton Arts Festival,
our schools do Arts and Culture pretty well, as well.
This concert was a collaboration between the Music
Departments of St Peters Preparatory School and Hilton College, and was
structured to display the talents of some of the many soloists and ensembles
from both establishments. On offer was everything from popular classics and
sacred choral works to contemporary music and jazz.
The concert was innovative and creative and showcased some
simply spectacular talent. This is of great credit to the music directors and
staff of both schools.
The first half of the programme featured a choir from St
Peters Preparatory School from Johannesburg. The choir is one of the four which
are active at the boys. There are nine choirs operating at the full St Peters
compliment of Boys school, Girls School and College. The backing for the choir at
this concert consisted of two pianos, kettle drums and various percussive
instruments. These added a richly textured orchestral feeling to the music. We
were treated to items from Gloria by Johan Rutter, Karl Jenkin’s
Sanctus, an African Christmas Carol and an African American Spiritual. The
singing throughout was strong, precise and joyful.
Various groups and soloists from Hilton College followed.
The Hilton College Band played two numbers, Something About Olivia
and Crave.
They are very skilled and have a singer who sounds very much like Rob Thomas
from the band Matchbox Twenty.
A harmonic Choral Group called Bravado accompanied by piano and violin gave a beautiful rendition of Shenandoah, which was followed by a String Quartet
playing Bach’s Air on a G String. The soloists who performed were firstly
Tshepo Mataung who sang Josh Groban’s Remember When It Rained with a rich,
powerful baritone voice. Next was the talented Yann Ngameni playing Nigel
Wood’s Aria on the
saxophone. The concert was rounded off with both schools on stage performing a
new arrangement by Hilton’s Brett Udal of Cold Play’s Fix You. A moving performance.
Soundscapes took place in the striking Hilton stone chapel. It
was filled to capacity for this concert and the audience rose to give the
performers a rousing and richly deserved standing ovation at the end. – Keith
Millar
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