Christmas started last night

Last night we had the pleasure of attending the Christmas concert at the Auditorium. The programme cover included this wonderful picture by Teah Kayla Collins, winner of the competition for Christmas card designs organised by the School of Music. As you can see, Teah’s theme was Santa’s sleigh loaded with gifts. The musical references on the sleigh and the instruments as presents were obviously what caught the judge’s eyes.

Those of you in the know will recognise the challenging pieces that the band chose to play in the first part of the concert. Jazz suite number 2 by Shostakovitch in particular stretched the musicians. and the soloists. The second part of the concert started with three villancicos (popular Spanish songs for Christmas), none of which we have heard before. The children from the school of music joined the band to form a choir. The final number on the programme was the delightful medley of Christmas tunes arranged by Leroy Anderson which did in fact include ‘Jingle Bells’. The children joined in with the Spanish version of ‘Silent Night’ which to our ears sounded strange because you didn’t get the rhymes e.g. night and bright; child and mild.