On Monday 1st November, pupils from King Edward’s School and King Edward VI High School took part in the Woodwind and Brass Instrumental Evening. This concert featured a variety of instruments, played by both soloists and ensembles.
We have a variety of musical events happening this year! Please click here to view this year’s music calendar:
We are delighted that rehearsals are back in person this year! Here is our Senior Swing Band in action:
On Thursday 23 September, the annual Miss Margaret Davis Memorial Recital took place in the Ruddock Hall. This recital featured some of the most advanced musicians from King Edward’s School and King Edward VI High School for Girls.
Thank you to David Ash for the photographs. You can view the full gallery here.
Shells’ Recital, September 2019
Tuesday, 21 September 2021
18:00 in the Ruddock Hall
Tonight is the opening of our concert season; the Shells’ first ever concert at King Edward’s School.
19 performances will be given by this most remarkable year of Shells. Admission is free and you do not have to book in advance.
Christopher Churcher in the Divisions has just been specially commended in the Royal Philharmonic’s Society’s Young Classical Writers’ Prize. His essay is on Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, the piece which initially drew him to classical music.
You can read more about the competition here. Christopher’s essay is posted here.
Over the Easter holiday, I was thrilled to be pronounced the winner of the under-18 category of the Benslow Young Composers’ Competition for my composition Very Early Spring. With a choice of five poems centering around Spring, applicants from across the United Kingdom were tasked with writing a five-minute-long song for soprano Sarah Leonard and pianist Stephen Gutman. My composition was heavily inspired by the colours and harmonies found in the French art song tradition of Fauré, Debussy and Boulanger. By contrasting floating, wintry piano arpeggios with recurring rising piano lines underpinned by warmer harmonies, I ventured to use the music to illustrate the relationship between the lingering squalls of winter and the ‘golden fingers’ of the sun in the poem by Katherine Mansfield. The final workshop of the competition was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, as the five shortlisted composers were able to hear each other’s works and receive comments and advice from the judge of the competition and Master of the Queen’s Music, Judith Weir. To win the competition was such a pleasant surprise, and I look forward to hearing my composition performed as part of the Benslow International Concert Series in August.
Christopher Churcher, Divisions
You can read more about the competition here.
A lockdown fantasy by Dare Odunjo (Fifths)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony no.9 op.125 (1824)
text by Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1809)
KES/KEHS Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
compiled by Oliver Clarke, Dhiran Sodha, and Martin Leigh
King Edward's Music 