Millfield's new concert hall has just hosted its first public recital.
The hall first. It smells beautifully of a carpenter's shop; light wood everywhere. Of the five 'bays' marked out on the side walls, two measure out the performing area and three the steeply raked seating. There is seating for 400, with a balcony round the back and one side, which will take more chairs. The performing area will accommodate a symphony orchestra. The roof is punctuated by wooden shapes - I don't know what else to call them - which may for all I know assist the acoustics, like the mushrooms in the Albert Hall. Nine curved shapes, a little like those blotters that you rock over the wet manuscript, are over the performing area, and a larger number of flat wooden shapes over the seating. The lighting is superb, and there is clearly provision for suspended microphones and other high tech stuff.
The only possible criticism is that a capacity audience makes quite a crush in the entrance hall during the interval! But tonight was very cold. In balmier weather they would spill out onto the lawns very pleasantly.
Then the music. Wow! One performer (Katy Hebditch) has gained a place in the National Youth Orchestra. For anyone not in the know, that's some achievement! Another (Amy Yuan) is auditioning for the Julliard School in New York - and that's probably the tops for performers.
There were twelve soloists, two of them appearing twice. Katy Hebditch played a Sammartini recorder sonata most elegantly, as well as performing a virtuoso marimba piece, Marimbasonic by Markus Halt (Hear an extract here). Jordan Guan, from Year 4, not only played the first movement of Beethoven's Pathetique piano Sonata but also the beautiful slow movement of Mozart's bassoon concerto. And at that young age!
As for those who appeared only once, all were breathtakingly good. Frances Feng played a Bach unaccompanied sonata movement - wonderful music; Amelia Dowsett played a Fantasie Pastorale Hongroise by Doppler - sorry that we interrupted with applause in the wrong place, Amelia; Da Bin Kim, the second of the three cellists, gave a splendid account of the Saint Saens Allegro Appassionata - he will learn to play the audience as well as the cello as he goes on; Hannah Trenner sang Herbert Howells' great song King David. Every word was clear in the hall's excellent acoustic. Just before the interval came one of the pieces that will stick in the memory, a duet for marimba and vibraphone played by Emma Wright and, presumably, her teacher. It is called Pramantha by Jack DeSalvo, arr. Arthur Lipner, and is in 7/4 time. Quiet and hypnotic, it has some of the repetitions that we associate with minimalist composers, but has far more interest, more events.
Olivia Bryant after the interval played Claire de Lune in an individual style, taking her time over the opening and easing into the main tempo of the piece. Laura Hammonds, our third cellist, played the romantic and wonderful Brahms E minor sonata first movement - the best movement in my opinion. Clarice Rarity, our good friend from Glastonbury, who proved such a sensation in the Parish Church Tsunami concert, showed her virtuosity in Scene de Ballet by Ravel's teach De Beriot, a salon piece with opportunity for Clarice to woo the audience. George Dye sang a baritone song by Vaughan Williams, Youth and Love. How good to hear RVW; he will surely come to be seen as a great English composer. The dazzling finale was the last movement of Glazunov's Violin Concerto played by Amy Yuan. She certainly ought to get into the Juilliard.
It was not only a great evening of music making, held together by the immaculate accompaniments of Anselm Barker, but it was an historic occasion, when Street's new music venue opened to the public for the first time. Although it belongs to Millfield, the school is generous in wishing the people of Street to come to it. May it long be the scene of great music.
