De Winton House Triumph In The 2013 House Music Competition

The 2013 House Music competition culminated on Sunday evening in a House Singing competition that was considered as one of the highest quality events of its kind ever witnessed at Christ College.

House Instrumental
On Thursday 17th October the Neuadd was filled with a large audience of parents, staff and supporters for the annual House Instrumental Competition. It was an evening of great entertainment with each house providing soloists for the categories of Keyboard, Strings, Brass, Woodwind and Percussion. In addition, each house had rehearsed an ensemble item, and these ranged in size from a saxophone duet with drum kit accompaniment to a group of 12 on stage. Most items were acoustic, but one or two houses opted for amplified versions which provided the audience with plenty of variety. The final results were close, with St David’s coming top of the table.

House Singing
Three days later, the much anticipated House Singing Competition took place to an audience of over 600 people in the sports hall. The air was full of excitement and the pressure was on to produce the goods after weeks of intensive rehearsals in just about every spare minute of each day. Each house performed an own-choice Part Song followed by a Welsh Song (Migldi Magldi this year) and then their own choice of Unison song. The performances left the two adjudicators, Rebecca Ledgard and Suzzie Vango, both from the professional Birmingham-based choir Ex Cathedra, with much to think about. As was commented in the final summing up, the overall standard was exceptionally high; most auditioned school choirs would feel happy to have produced the kind of performance standard achieved here tonight, particularly with such minimal staff input. The winners of the singing were De Winton house, with Donaldson’s only a small margin behind in second place.

The overall winners of the whole competition were De Winton house. The Director of Music, Jonathan Ling, was particularly keen to congratulate all those who took part and especially to each of the Heads of House Music, who had inspired their peers and had driven them to new musical heights.
For the assembled audience, it was an evening never to be forgotten. The challenge is now to raise the bar for next year’s event!