De Winton House Claim House Music Title For The Fifth Year In A Row

After a thrilling house instrumental competition on Friday evening, the culmination of the inter-house music competition took place on Sunday evening with the house singing competition.

Friday evening saw each house enter a pupil who performed an instrumental solo piece followed by an instrumental ensemble performance from the houses. De Winton topped the leader board on Friday evening following Sian’s drum solo of Up Town Funk, Rosie’s flute performance of Idyllefrom Suite de TroisMoceaux, Meg’s version on the cornet of Chattanooga ChooChoo, Gwen’s Czardas on the violin and Sarah’s Moonlight Sonata on the piano.

The second part of the competition saw a packed audience of pupils, parents and staff gather for the inter-house singing event – always a highlight in the school calendar. With weeks of practice under their belts, the girls and boys from the five senior houses and Alway House were ready to put on a show.

With the first round of part songs starting with Alway’s Give us Hope, followed by St David’s Caravan of Love, de Winton House performed The Violet followed by Donaldson’s Oh Shenandoah. School House upped the tempo with Runaround Sue before Orchard House completed the round with Pompeii by Bastille. The final round of unison performances where every member of each house takes part, started with St David’s House accomplished performance of U2’s With or Without You. Next up was Donaldson’s House with their version of Queen’s Don’t Stop me Now before School House’s more subdued Mad World. Our year 7 and 8 pupils from Alway House were next with John Farnham’s You’re the Voice then Orchard’s performance of Counting Stars. The final performance of the evening was from the eventual winners, De Winton House and their version of West Life’s What about now.

After a brief interlude for the adjudicating to take place, Mr Nick Gedge took the stage to give his feedback and scores to the houses for each performance. De Winton’s The Violet received the top scores from the part song section with St David’s House winning the unison section for their U2 song. In his summing up, Mr Gedge complimented all the pupils on the amount of practice, team work and passion that had obviously been invested in the preparation for the event. The performances had engaged him, made him smile and the communication had been excellent.

Director of Music, Mr Jonathan Ling, then reviewed the scores from Friday evening’s instrumental competition and with winning scores on both nights, de Winton House were announced winners for the fifth consecutive year. Well done to all who took part and particularly the girls in de Winton House.