From James Bond to Mary Poppins: concert features film and TV favourites

The spring music concert at QE brought some familiar sounds from film and television to the audience in the Shearly Hall.

The Sounds from the Screen concert featured performances from 11 School ensembles, ranging in size from the four-strong Saxophone Ensemble to the dozens of boys who sang with the School Choir.

Among the highlights were the boys of the Barbershop group being joined for part of their set by Director of Music Cheryl Horne and her fellow teachers, Jen Brown, Tom Jack and Lucy Riseborough.

Other staff appearances included Chemistry teacher Susanna Butterworth, who played as part of the Camerata, which was directed by Old Elizabethan Simon Purdy, a summer 2016 leaver, and Biology teacher Simon Hall, who played his cello with the Symphony Orchestra in their performance of Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre, an arrangement of which was famously used as the theme to the TV series, Jonathan Creek.

Some of the pieces had been arranged by boys: Year 11 boys Binu Perera and Uday Kataria teamed up to arrange Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins for the Wind Quintet and Binu also arranged a journey through Seven Years at Hogwarts comprising a medley from the Harry Potter films for the same ensemble.

The theme music played spanned the era of TV and film: the School Choir’s contribution included the Bond theme, Skyfall, and The Hanging Tree from The Hunger Games, while the Senior Strings tackled a Thunderbirds Medley, the Concert Band played The Dam Busters March, the Chamber Choir sang Rhythm of Life from the film and musical, Sweet Charity and the Brass Ensemble performed the famous Twentieth Century Fox theme.

The Senior Indian Ensemble’s performance featured songs from two Tamil-language films – Vennmegam Pennagha from the 2008 family drama, Yaaradi Nee Mohini, and Kannodu Kanbathellam from the 1998 romantic comedy, Jeans.