Inaugural Composition Competition Miss Jemima Lofts
Following this was a world premiere of ‘Some Corner of a Foreign Field’ by Cecilia McDowall, which held particular significance for Dulwich College as the words were all written by OAs. James Oxley, the soloist Tenor for this piece, gave an outstanding performance with Cecilia herself giving him a standing ovation. James was accompanied by the Madrigal and Chapel Choir together with a selection of teachers and parents who did a splendid job, truly doing the piece justice. After the interval, Douglas Tang (OA) gave a memorable performance of ‘Toccata’ on the organ, showing how much he has improved – from an already amazing level when he left Dulwich to one that is quite simply masterful. The evening concluded with ‘Requiem Op 9’ composed by Maurice Durufle – a nine movement piece. Fiona Mackay and Rodney Earl Clark (OA) gave two commanding performances as Mezzo Soprano and Baritone soloist respectively, accompanied by another pleasing performance from Douglas Tang on the organ. Again, the joint Choir did a magnificent job of capturing the essence of the piece and projecting this to the audience. Overall, it was a brilliant evening and one that will long live in this author’s memory of Dulwich concerts. House Electric Music Competition Charlie Godsiff (Year 13)
A lthough the pupils at Dulwich College have the chance to compose their own music throughout their class music lessons in each year group, using music technology enhances and develops their skills and musical output. The Composition Competition was therefore designed to give all boys across the school, whether they chose to take GCSE, A-level or not, the opportunity to compose a piece of music in any style they wished. They were able to use any form of music technology such as GarageBand, Logic or Sibelius, and simply had to submit a recording and, for Year 10 upwards, a score, lead sheet or chord chart as well. We had 26 superb entries from Year 7 upwards with a runner-up and winner in each category, both winning Amazon vouchers. The compositions were adjudicated by Cecilia McDowall, our Visiting Composer, who was named as British Choral Composer of the Year 2014, as well as Tom Recknell, our Music Technologist Specialist. During the adjudication and prize giving, the boys were able to listen to each of the winning entries, which included Hal Howe’s film music composition. Hal Howe (Year 8) explains how he started composing W hen I was younger, I used to love to use musician, I was already into composing and improvising around Jazz themes on the piano. When I started at Dulwich College, I was really interested in updating my music tech knowledge and immediately joined the Music Tech Club for Lower School as well as the Upper School every Monday. When I first used Logic ProX, I was amazed by how much more sophisticated it was compared to GarageBand and I started making songs on Logic, really enjoying finding so many better ways in which to do so. GarageBand as it was really fun. Although I didn’t think of myself as a traditional classical
Composition Competition Results
Intermediate category Winner: Hal Howe (Year 8) Runner up: Danny McCullough (Year 9) Highly Commended:Theo Murchie (Year 9) GCSE category Winner: Greg South (Year 10) Runner up: Samuel Stopford (Year 11) Highly Commended: Jimin Zhang (Year 11) and Chyaro Hylton (Year 10)
W ith this new competition being introduced to the House Music event last year, there was a high level of anticipation for what would be produced at this year’s sophomore event. As ever with Dulwich music, the standard was high and the lights were dim, making it a hard task for adjudicator Harvey Brough to pick a winner. Kicking off the events in a smoke-filled theatre were last year’s winners Grenville with their rendition of The Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Today’, followed by House Music winners Marlowe singing their own original song ‘I Want You Around’, written by Eddie Graham, Chris Byfield, and Stephane de Keerle. Raleigh followed with ‘All Over My Face’ by The Loose Joints, after which Drake provided us with a highly entertaining version of ‘Killing In The Name’ by Rage Against The Machine, with a particular mention going to Will Horseman for his lead vocals coming out of the darkened hood of his Parker coat. Sidney tried to recover from their less-than-stellar effort in the Part Song with ‘Seven Nation Army’ by The White Stripes (to a debatable degree of success), followed by Spenser’s ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’ by The Hives. Rounding off the evening was Howard’s ‘It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry’ by Glasvegas, and Jonson’s attempt at The Foo Fighter’s ‘Evermore’. Despite the great atmosphere and the enthusiasm, unfortunately only one house could achieve what they set out for, and the evening’s winners were Marlowe. We look forward to seeing what students can achieve in next year’s competition.
Upper School category Winner:Will Horseman (Year 13) Runner up: Zach Fox (Year 12)
For Christmas, my parents bought me Logic ProX so I could use it at home and I started to dream about making film music. I decided to download a movie from YouTube and write a short score for it. I chose Address is Approximate because it worked really well without the sound effects and I thought it was a clever film. I then entered the inaugural Composition Competition and won the Intermediate Class for Year 7-9, which was so exciting. It was a fantastic feeling to win Amazon vouchers just for doing something that I love. I would thoroughly recommend joining the Music Tech club as well because firstly it is really fun; but secondly, you can make music that could be in the charts one day with the amazing technology that real music producers use.
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