DULWICH COLLEGE OLYMPIAD: SINGAPORE 2024
MUSIC
played through at performance speeds in order to gain a sense of the music, with the full orchestra continuing to rehearse until late in the afternoon. There were in total 143 musicians participating in the Dulwich Olympiad celebrations for music, with roughly 60 of these in the orchestra. The orchestra saw a particu- larly strong strings section: there were plenty of violins, a healthy six violas, and a remarkable 17 cellos. Despite this, the lower strings section was slightly imbalanced due to the presence of only one double bass. There was a healthy horn section, but the woodwind section lacked a bassoon and had few clarinets or oboes. This was, how- ever, compensated for with a large number of saxophon- ists, for whom the pieces had been especially arranged in light of the fewer oboes and clarinets. Tuesday was the day of the first concert. Rehearsals began at 08:20, with the orchestra split into sections to practise specific elements of ‘Mars’, ‘Bacchanale’
THE ORCHESTRAL GEREMIA GOVER (YEAR 12)
The musical celebrations in Singapore involved an intense but satisfying programme of preparation across the five- day period of the Olympiad. The week saw performances in a total of three concerts, with a host of musical styles and genres performed, ranging from classical to tradition- al to contemporary. The orchestral side of music at the Dulwich Olympiad was led by Kevin Field, a former associate conductor for the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Meanwhile, rehearsals for the choir were held by Lisa Wong, the Director of Choruses for the Cleveland Orchestra in Ohio. Both halves prepared a performance of five pieces of music, two of which were for both orchestra and choir, yielding a total of eight works of music to be performed at the final Student Gala Concert. Rehearsals began on Monday after the opening ceremo- ny. Kevin Field introduced the orchestra to the pieces for performance: a condensed arrangement of ‘Mars’ and ‘Jupiter’ from Gustav Holst’s The Planets ; the shortened ‘Bacchanale’ by Saint-Saëns from the opera, Samson and Delilah ; a reduced performance of various themes from the Romeo and Juliet overture by Tchaikovsky; ‘Antiphon’ from the Five Mystical Songs by Vaughan Williams; and a contemporary piece, ‘I Dream a World’, written by André Thomas for both orchestra and choir. The choir was sent away to rehearse separately whilst the orchestra was left to practise in the Greenhouse building. The pieces were
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