House Music Competitions
House Music Competition 2005
There can be no doubting the popularity of the
House Music Competition, which took place on
Sunday 16 October. Members of the audience
queued outside the hall a full hour before the
start of the competition to get the best seats,
indeed there are many who consider it to be the
premier event of the school year.
 The format of the competition has remained the
same since its inception in 1994. Each of the
six houses performs an instrumental piece for
three or more participants, a part song and
finally a unison song with every member of the
house contributing. The evening of the
competition is just the culmination of weeks and
in some cases months of preparation, a period in
which music is rightly given a high profile
within the life of the school.
The man with the tough and thankless task of
adjudicating this year’s competition was David
White, formerly Director of Music at Rendcomb
College. With several hundred partisan
amateur judges to disagree with the final
decisions, adjudication is no easy task and no
competition has been without controversy and
days of post-event discussion about the relative
merits of the different performances.
The instrumentals were of a very high standard
and rich variety of styles ranging from de
Winton House’s cool arrangement of ‘The Teddy
Bears’ Picnic’ for four violins and percussion
to the audience favourite on the night, Orchard
House’s ‘Boogie Round the Orchard’ a vibrant and
tight twelve bar blues written especially for
the event by saxophonist Steffan Raw-Rees.
However, few could really argue with the
eventual winner, Corelli’s ‘Trio sonata’ played
with great style by three of the most
accomplished musicians in the school, Matthew
Sun on violin, Dae-bin Im on ‘cello and Kazuma
Furuta on trumpet representing St.David’s House.
St. David’s also took the award for the part
song performance with a lovely version of the
traditional ‘Steal Away’, though Alway House’s
‘Alway Looks on the Bright Side of Life’
deserves special
mention, not least for the fact
that all of the house participated. There were
several strong contenders for the unison prize
again showing a variety of song styles. School
House turned in a strong performance of Leonard
Cohen’s ‘ Hallelujah’ and Donaldson's ‘ Deadwood
Stage’ was equally enjoyable. Orchard House came
out top though with their well-rehearsed and
committed rendition of the Boomtown Rats’ ‘I
Don’t Like Mondays.’
St. David’s took the overall award for the
competition and the Headmaster’s words of thanks
to all the pupils for their hard work and the
quality of the evening’s entertainment were well
deserved. Jonathan Cooper and James Slater of
the music department can be proud of their
efforts.
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