Scotch College

After 155 years, Foundation Day Concert reaches new heights

This year’s Foundation Day Concert scaled new heights. It was a concert of essentially two halves, orchestral and vocal. The first half resonated with a musicality which few, if any, institutions in Australia could match for depth, beauty and challenge. The second half resonated with excitement, energy and, despite some lapses in the massed singing, enthusiastic volume. Under the careful management of the music staff, it was an efficient spectacle, smoothly run, visually interesting and musically engaging. It was a triumph of rehearsal, performance and logistics.

Of especial note this year were two outstanding soloists in the first half. Henry Hedinger tackled the daunting first movement of the Rachmaninov 2nd Piano Concerto with composure and verve. His powerful chords in the opening section held their own with the orchestra, under John Ferguson’s measured and thoughtful baton, while his quieter moments flowed with a liquid simplicity to enchant the listener. Henry provided a polished if contained performance, which set the scene for much of what was to come during the rest of the evening.

Peter Chandler then tackled the mysterious and tantalising Butterfly Lovers Concerto with an empathetic flair, which covered the drama, romance and tragedy of the composition. With brilliant finger and bow work, Chandler conveyed the magic of the orient and the poignancy of the love story in his own personal display of virtuosity. In more than 20 years of attending the Foundation Day Concerts, this writer has never seen such an accomplished performance, and one which took with it in most sympathetic tones the skill of the symphony orchestra.

Under the baton of the new Head of Strings, James deRosario, the Academy String Orchestra played the first movement of Britten’s Simple Symphony boisterously, but with finesse and panache. It was a lively and interesting performance which showcased many of the School’s leading string players. In a similar, if rather different, vein Roger Schmidli’s Symphonic Wind generated the necessary energy to carry the audience through Whitacre’s Ghost Train, while El Camino Real provided a lively European feel to end the first half.

The second half started with the exuberance of the Military Band, resplendent in their uniforms and hypnotic in their precision, as they played through the Thunderbirds March. The lovely visual touch of the band rising from the pit recalled (for those old enough to remember) the original excitement of Thunderbird Three getting ready for take-off. This was a clever piece of programming which worked well as a start for the various following items. Of those, the Pipe Band compelled enthusiastic attention for its restrained marching and clever bracket of three pieces. Visually stunning and musically focused, the band demonstrated exactly why it is one of the leading pipe bands in Australia with impressive control of sound and movement.

The last section of the evening featured several vocal soloists, a testament to the growing interest in singing in the School. Of particular note were Nicholas Wolstenholme (especially in his dramatic rendition of ‘Mack the Knife’) and Shoumendu Ganguly, while all the other soloists handled the challenge of performing to such a large and discerning audience with commendable aplomb. The very large College Choir sang a two-song bracket, and was able to capture the musical poetry of W B Yeats with considerable success. The Chamber Choir showed the benefits of last year’s Foundation Fellow conductor Anton Armstrong, in their beautiful control during ‘Lux Aurumque’ and their emotive involvement in Paul Simon’s ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’. The touching nuances in this rendition conveyed much of the wistfulness and longing of the original performance, and were one of the highlights of the second half.

The final massed singing again featured a number of soloists, who performed creditably given the occasional rough edges of the 600-odd supporting voices. While struggling with some of the pieces, the massed choir never wavered in their enthusiastic support of the music. They performed best in ‘Oklahoma’, ‘Send in the Clowns’ and ‘Do you Hear the People Sing’ which brought the concert to a rousing and well-positioned conclusion. The symphony orchestra played well throughout this bracket, as they did for all the School songs and other occasional pieces. They are an ornament to the School and a credit to their teachers, conductor and their own commitment.

John Ferguson directed the night with his usual ebullient and infectious energy, and was wonderfully supported by all the music staff and other conductors during the concert. It was particularly delightful to hear the various leading boy musicians as they introduced and commented on various parts of the evening – a trend which allows the audience to see beyond the music to the real person behind the instrument.

No matter how wonderful the traditional Foundation Day Concert may have been, however, there is one item which will live in the memory of all who had the privilege of attending, whether as performer or as spectator. As the concert began, the lights dimmed to black, and from the darkness of the stage emerged the extraordinarily haunting power of Nathan Djerrkura’s didgeridoo.

Few moments have captured the imagination of audiences as much as these opening minutes, which heralded the acceptance and integration of the School’s indigenous outreach program into the most iconic of all Scotch events. It was as if, in its 155th year, the Foundation Day Concert had reached a new level of experience, understanding and maturity. This blend of old and new, and of sometimes conflicting cultures, genuinely enabled the concert to scale a new height – and none there will ever forget it.

Dr Alan Watkinson
Director of Development