Tuesday, 1 September 2015

The big concert and the longest day

Monday was the most tiring day for us.  We started with Stage Band visiting one school and Guitars another to give short concerts on the way to Newton College, a beautiful private school up in the hills on the way to Manchay.  At Newton, we gave 2 concerts in the extremely large theatre before having a lovely lunch in the large cafeteria, with wonderful views of the surrounding mountains.

After lunch we had a brief half hour to relax, though some of the youngsters chose to play football or race each other on the running track!  We then split into three groups; strings, guitars and wind/brass, for workshops with Newton students.

At 4.30 we left Newton and headed back to Markham College.  Following a brief snack, we then gave our big public concert. HYM had the first half:

Guitar Group:
Sailor's Hornpipe
Pirates of the Caribbean
Wild Mountain Thyme
Venezuelan Waltz

Big Band (including several guest players from Markham):
Encuentro
At Last (featuring Frances Cummings & Henry Davidson)


Orchestra (conducted by Thomas Gregory):
Suite from Holst's The Planets
Mars
Venus
Jupiter

Massed ensemble:
Bohemian Rhapsody - arranged and conducted by Thomas Gregory

The audience were extremely enthusiastic and we also had the opportunity to publicly thank the school and the host families.

The second half of the concert was shared with the choir and orchestra of Sinfonia por El Peru, directed by Espartaco Lavalle. After some beautiful performances of Peruvian music, we joined them to form an orchestra of nearly 200 young people and played

Radetzky March
Trepak (from The Nutcracker)
1812 Overture
El Condor Pasa
La Mariposa

This morning we are relaxing, though the guitar group are doing a workshop with Markham students...








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