St. John's, Smith Square

This year Haileybury’s musicians travelled to a new London concert venue at a different time of year – and the resulting concert at St. John’s, Smith Square on Thursday 28th February was a resounding success. The audience was treated first of all to a light aperitif in the form of Shostakovich’s First Jazz Suite played by the chamber ensemble. The String Orchestra presented a rarely-heard work – Sibelius’ Romance in C – alongside a brand new work by Haileybury’s Head of Strings, Temperaments. The strength and musicianship (and size!) of Haileybury’s Chapel Choir was evident once again as they finished the first half of the programme with three Songs of Farewell and the challenging Blest Pair of Sirens, all by Sir C. Hubert Parry. The talking point of the evening, however, was the committed and passionate playing of the Symphony Orchestra. After another light curtain raiser – Shostakovich’s arrangement of Tea for Two – the Symphony Orchestra’s instrumentalists rose to the very demanding challenge of Schumman’s Fourth Symphony producing an exceptionally dedicated performance of this romantic symphony.