Weekly Highlights 26th May 2023

Brass Department Masterclasses with Amos Miller

On 24th April, the Brass Department was delighted to welcome Amos Miller, trombonist and Head of Brass at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Amos’s illustrious career has included working across a multitude of genres and with some of the world’s leading orchestras, as well as playing for blockbuster film soundtracks. Amos worked with a selection of Purcell first-study brass students, including trombonists Alex (Year 11), Belinda (Year 10) and Skye (Year 9), trumpeter Freddie (Year 13), and French horn player Chloe (Year 13). Students benefited enormously from Amos’s energy and insights, which were concerned not only with breathing, posture and interactions with a professional piano accompanist (on this occasion both Debbie Shah and Daniel Swain), but also general stage presence, confidence and remaining focused and relaxed under pressure (Amos has a particular interest in the psychology of performance, having completed his first degree at Oxford University in Experimental Psychology). Every student played with panache, delivering high-quality playing that immediately impressed Amos. Given the comparatively young age of many of the brass-playing students at Purcell, the quality of sound and the technical neatness demonstrated in performance conditions were especially impressive, and the students showed an immediate receptiveness to Amos’s comments and advice, for which each should be especially recognised.

So, many congratulations to Alex, Belinda, Skye, Freddie and Chloe for their excellent performances, and many thanks to their teachers (Ruth Molins, Tony Cross and Tim Ellis) for their committed work in preparing them so well for the class, as well as to brass-playing Resident Practice Supervisor Albert Owen, whose committed hard work with the brass students this academic year has contributed so fruitfully to their overall development.
 

Percussion Department Masterclass with Paul Philbert

On 24th April the Percussion Department welcomed Paul Philbert to give a timpani masterclass to the first-study percussionists. An alumnus of Purcell and now Principal Timpanist with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chineke!, Paul heard solo performances and excerpts from orchestral repertoire played by Ali (Year 12), Joshua (Year 13) and Hannah (Year 9). The class covered a multitude of topics and sometimes took on a philosophical tone, not least as students considered the particular challenges and responsibilities a timpanist holds within an orchestral context. The class finished with everybody playing the timpani and percussion parts for the final Presto of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony – a suitably joyful conclusion to a fabulously thought-provoking class.
 

Harp & Percussion Departments Lunchtime Concerts

On the 4th and 15th May respectively, the Harp and Percussion Departments presented departmental Lunchtime Concerts of their own, showcasing a selection of solo and ensemble work from the term so far. The harpists were represented by impressive performances from Farrah (Year 10), Rowena (Year 13), Saule (Year 8) and Aaron (Year 11), all of whom displayed stylish and beautifully poised playing in repertoire spanning a variety of styles and eras. They were supported by an appreciative audience who, we hope, left the concert with a newly-found appreciation for the harp’s considerable intricacies, as well as by Harp Department teachers Daphne Boden and Charlotte Seale. The Percussion Department Lunchtime Concert was given by Ali (Year 12), Mahla (Year 8), Joshua (Year 13) and Hannah (Year 9). After a performance by Hannah and Mahla of ‘It Rained on Bali’ – a duet for vibraphone and marimba – the capacity audience was treated to solo performances from each of the first-study players. To end, Ali and Joshua gave a stirring and flamboyant performance of Emmanuel Sejourne’s ‘Departures’, a sad and richly sonorous duo for two marimbas. The performance brought the audience to its feet – and rightly so! Congratulations to all the harpists and percussionists, and thank you to the Harp and Percussion Department staff for their work with the students, too.
 

UKMT Junior Mathematics Challenge

Year 7 and 8 students at The Purcell School achieved two Gold Medals and three Silver Medals and a Bronze medal in this year’s UKMT Junior Maths Challenge. Over 250,000 students from across the UK sat the Junior Maths Challenge with roughly the top 6% receiving a gold certificate and the next 13% silver.

Congratulations to our certificate winners and to all the pupils that took part in this challenging test of mathematical logic, reasoning and problem solving.

Gold – David and Victor (Year 7)
Silver – Kelchi, Gui (Year 7) and Willow (Year 8)
Bronze – Sonya (Year 8)

Piano Department Trip to Italy & Romania

From 25th to 1st June a cohort of talented young pianists from Purcell – accompanied by Head of Keyboard William Fong, Director of Music Paul Hoskins, and Concerts Coordinator Bethany Wright – will be touring Italy and Romania with their well-honed Rachmaninoff repertoire.

Friday 26th May – Rachmaninoff Piano Tour Concert
Venue: National Piano Festival, Verona, Italy

Saturday 27th May – Rachmaninoff Piano Tour Concert
Venue: Talent Music Masters Course, Brescia, Italy

Monday 29th May – Classical Spring Festival Rachmaninoff Piano Works
Venue: ARCUB Bucharest, Romania

Wednesday 31st May – Classical Spring Festival Rachmaninoff Piano Works
Venue: Brasov Philharmonic Hall, Romania

We wish all taking part happy travels and every success for these exciting performances. Here’s to making some amazing memories!
 

Boarders Visit the Lost Jungle

Last weekend, the boarders of Avison House and Sunley (Year 9) went on an adventure in the Lost Jungle . . . taking on the 18 hole Amazon golf course.

On the Amazon Course, the students encountered fountains and waterfalls, made their way through the Aztec tomb and past a variety of our Jungle wildlife – all while recording some rather dubious scores. Our thanks to houseparent John Brookes and the rest of the Avison and Sunley teams for this great afternoon out.

Concerts Week in Review

As we come to the end of a busy week, it’s wonderful to reflect on all that our students have achieved in the last week of this performance-packed half term. Our young players gave a private concert at Bushey House and took part in a fantastic Piano Department Concert. Tanja Goldberg’s violinists gave a class concert in the CP Hall, and students performed for Lunchtime Concerts. We were also treated to a concert by the Mitsu Piano Trio Concert which featured new compositions from our student-composers.

Well done to all composers and performers for their brilliant playing: Kutay, David, April, Rowena, Xilang, Josh, Siyue, Grace, Thomas, Anastasia, Jiahao, Nancy, Benji, Zhizhu, Rujie, Choe, Tianyu, Herman, Ozel, Zarema, Reeka, Yakub, Malena, Alexander, Antonia, Yu-Wei, Francisca, Ms Debbie Shah, Cole, Aaron, Nemunis, Mr Simon Speare, Suna, Danya, Iklim, Arunima, Farrah, Mina, Jacqueline, Sofiia and Suanoi.
 

Michal Kaznowski

We were deeply saddened to hear of the recent death of our colleague and former cello teacher at The Purcell School, Michal Kaznowski. Our esteemed cello teacher, Pal Banda, Michal‘s close friend and colleague writes:

‘It was an unlikely phone call from a friend, Martin Outram telling me about the untimely passing of Michal Kaznowski. I found it impossible to believe as I chatted to him on the phone informally the night before, only hours before he fell asleep forever. He was saying he had some music to give me and we’d talk soon.

He left us at the height of his power (he still had a quartet rehearsal on the day), was full of plans, new ideas and as ever, strong opinions. He left all his pending arguments behind, too, which were many and with many people. He was a real Marmite person, dividing people around him to those who found him irritating, argumentative, and others who enjoyed his friendship, his boundless energy and generosity; he threw himself into everything with real passion. But in one thing everyone had to agree: he was always genuine, with a very strong sense of justice he was prepared to fight for.

We have been very good friends in the last 40 years, Michal helped me all along this time, it was him who recommended me for The Purcell School, where we have been teaching together for a long time. In those years we were occasionally working on each other’s pupils, to broaden their horizon and discussing their problems together. Although we came from different backgrounds we trusted each others playing and teaching fully and when one of us was away it was naturally the one took over teaching the pupils, who were very familiar with both of us. He was also helping me to be on the staff of RCMJD.

Conversations were timeless with him, they never started, nor finished, we usually continued where we left them, whenever. Similarly, saying hello and goodbye were unheard of, just like hours before he fell asleep finally.

Michal played with my quartet and I was also invited to play quintets with his quartet regularly. We could play very well together.

When I recover from the shock of him gone, I’ll miss him dearly, miss his humour, his committed attitude for whatever he was involved, he was such a great person, teacher, quartet player, and above all such a wonderful friend. The world is going to be grayer and emptier without him.’ Pal Banda

Alumnus Fundraises for Albert Kennedy Trust

Earlier this month, we were pleased to see that alumnus and pianist Kasparas Mikuzis had been invited by award-winning actor and co-founder of Stonewall UK, Sir Ian McKellen to perform in an intimate fundraising event in support of the Albert Kennedy Trust. Kasparas commented that it was a ‘truly special evening’ and that he was ‘more than happy to share some music with the donors who managed to contribute nearly half a million pounds to the trust’. What a wonderful achievement! Congratulations to Kasparas.

Kasparas studied piano at Purcell under Justas Dvarionas, and is now at the Royal Academy of Music.
 

Forthcoming Events

In addition to those highlighted events below, please visit our new online Concerts and Events Guide here.

Tuesday 20th June – Singers’ Soirée
Time: 6pm
Venue: Recital Room, The Purcell School
Tickets: Free admission. No booking required

Come and hear some of Purcell’s finest singers in a short musical soirée to celebrate the year’s hard work. The concert will feature all first study voice students.

Thursday 22nd June – Class Concert with Pal Banda
Time: 4pm
Venue: The Recital Room, The Purcell School
Tickets: Free admission. No booking required

The cello students of Pal Banda will be performing to one another in celebration of their hard work and progress this academic year.

Performers: Josh, Ken, Teresa, Jessie, Emma and Ivanna

Friday 23rd June – Lower School Concert
Time: 3pm
Venue: CP Hall, The Purcell School
Tickets: Free admission. No booking required

This concert will feature a selection of talented soloists from the Lower School.

Monday 26th June – Brass Department Concert
Time: 7pm
Venue: CP Hall, The Purcell School
Tickets: Free admission. No booking required

Wednesday 28th June – Piano Department Concert at St James’ Piccadilly
Time: 7pm
Venue: St James’s Piccadilly, 197 Piccadilly, St. James’s, London W1J 9LL, UK
Tickets: Free admission. No booking required

This group of young performers, all selected to perform by audition, promise a rich and varied pianistic feast including works by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Chopin. 

Please be aware that the programme is subject to change. 

Wednesday 28th June – Purcell Plays Jazz Funk
Time: 7pm
Venue: Watford Palace Theatre, 20 Clarendon Rd, Watford WD17 1JZ
Tickets: Tickets are £8 to £15 and available to purchase from the Watford Palace Theatre box office here

A Jazz Department concert featuring The Purcell School Jazz Ensembles and Big Band (plus strings and vocalists), playing the music of Austrian bass guitarist Stefan Redtenbacher. Stefan will be joining us for the concert to direct and play with the ensembles.

Thursday 29th June – Proms at St Jude’s
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: St Jude’s Church, Hampstead, Central Square, London NW11 7AH, UK
Tickets: Tickets are £25 to £35 and available from Proms at St Jude’s box office here

Featuring:
James Gilchrist, tenor
Chloe Harrison, horn
Paul Hoskins, conductor

Programme:
Elgar | Serenade for Strings
Britten | Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings
Mahler | Adagietto from Symphony No. 5
Beethoven | Symphony No. 2

Monday 3rd July – Purell Parallels III: Midsummer Meze
Time: 7pm
Venue: CP Hall, The Purcell School
Tickets: Free admission. No booking required

The third concert in the Purcell Parallels series, entitled Midsummer Meze, features new works by Maddie (Year 13), Robert Saxton, Antonia (Year 12), Phil Dutton, Aaron (Year 11), Gareth Moorcraft, Sylvia Lim, Cole (Year 11) with preludes and encores by Tim and Leyla (Year 10), Nemunis (Year 9) and Kaelan (Year 10).

Monday 3rd July – Commercial and Popular Music Dept LIVE at The Horns
Time: 7pm
Venue: The Horns, 1 Hempstead Rd, Watford WD17 3RL, UK
Tickets: Free entry

Come along to the very first gig featuring students from our new Commercial & Popular Music Department!

Expect to hear 60’s Motown hits, funk, rock and original music from our students as they perform in The Horns, a local established music venue.

Dancing is most definitely permitted!

Tuesday 4th July – Rachmaninoff 150 Concert
Time: 7pm
Venue: CP Hall, The Purcell School
Tickets: Free admission. No booking required

In Rachmaninov’s 150th birthday year, join us in the CP Hall for a concert featuring the Purcell Chamber Choir, Symphonic Wind Orchestra and Sixth Form Pianists.

Wednesday 5th July – Upper Sixth Piano Recital
Time: 7pm
Venue: Recital Room, The Purcell School
Tickets: Free admission. No booking required

Student-led concert featuring, for the final time as Purcell students, Djordje, Rujie, Benji, Ozel, Anastasia and Thomas.

Programme:
Mendelssohn | Variation Sérieuses Op.54
Brahms | Intermezzos Op.118, No.1 & No.2
Liszt | Vallee D’Obermann
Rachmaninoff | Études-Tableaux Op.39, No.8, No.9
Scriabin | Étude Op.42 No.5
Prokofiev | Vision Fugitives Op.22 – No.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 16
Kreisler, arr. Rachmaninoff | Liebesleid
Liszt | Deuxieme Annee V; Sonetto 104 del Petracha
Schumann | Träumerei

Thursday 6th July – Sound, Image, Movement Concert
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: CP Hall, The Purcell School
Tickets: Free admission. No booking required

Come along to the CP Hall for the final concert of the year – Sound, Image, Movement!