St Michael’s and All Angels Church Christmas Concert
By Ricky, Editor-in-chief
Twenty-nine musicians from Dartford Grammar School performed in the Christmas Concert at St Michael’s and All Angels Church, Wilmington on Saturday 10th December. It had a range of performances, including a wide range of ensembles and soloists.
A huge variety of music was performed by experienced players as well as the Junior Orchestra. There were also many soloist performances which were excellent and were all definitely a main “highlight”. The Junior Strings performed Away in a Manger, Hava Nagila and We wish you a Merry Christmas. That was followed by Daniel Stainer (Year 8) performing a solo violin act; Rondino on a Theme of Beethoven by Kreisler. We were then warmly greeted by Sai Abbaraju’s excellent singing of Silent Night (Year 8). That was then followed by the Junior Orchestra which performed the Star Wars Medley including students from Year 7 and 8. Afterwards, Julian Ono-Osborne, Tayo Aina and I (all Year 9) performed Jingle Bells Boogie, a jazzy rendition of Jingle Bells with Julian playing the piano, Tayo drumming and myself playing the flute. I then performed Let It Snow on the flute accompanied by Mrs Metcalf on the piano. Solon Fountzopoulos’ (Year 8) playing of The Entertainer by Joplin was amazing! Liam Bannister (Year 9) sung and played on the guitar a great arrangement of Hallelujah by Cohen. To finish off the first half, the Dartford Camerata, with Violin Soloist James Yu (Year 9) performed the 1st Movement ‘Allegro’ from E Major Violin Concerto by J.S Bach.
The second half was started by Abel De Smet performing Little Drummer Boy for the Cello. Shortly after, there were audience carols including Once in Royal David’s City (Mrs Metcalf), Good King Wenceslas (Mrs Metcalf) and Angels from the Realms of Glory (performed by James Winstanley and Mattias Kalensinskas). After the carols, Skandha Murali (Year 8) performed Intermezzo from Harry Janos by Kodaly. There were then more audience carols including The First Nowell (performed by Alex Doughty) and Ding Dong Merrily on High and Oh Come all ye faithful (performed by Julian Ono-Osborne and I). Mattias Kalensinskas then performed Waltz by Chopin which was a relaxing way to end the concert. Everyone then performed the final carol, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, led by Mrs Richardson. Congratulations and well done to all of the performers for making this concert a success as well as Mrs Metcalf, Mrs du Plessis and Mrs Richardson for organising the concert and playing accompaniments. Thank you to everyone for making this concert a wonderful evening for the audience.