Christmas Cracker

This year's Christmas concert began to the beat of the floor tom as the staff and student Choir sang Missa Luba. Certain students featured heavily during the evening: Isabel Andrzejewski led a student violin trio in Pachelbel's canon before wowing the audience with a breathtaking piano piece by Schumann; not to be outdone, Emma Louise Kollien Gjerde gave us a full-blooded rendition of Mussrogsky's the Golden Gate at Kiev on piano; Alex Dreier sang an vocal duet in Italian with Karina Todorova and then a solo in German " Meine Lippen, sie kussen so heiss " before joining Isabel and others in the Chamber Group for the finale of Winter Wonderland.

Virtuoso performances were interspersed with lighter offerings such as Lena Fuldauer's piano solo “November”,Jack Dykstra-McCarthy's vocal “As Time Goes By”, Christina Nanbara's piano solo “Black Coffee” and Linn Solheim Jacobsen's vocal “Who Will Buy?” Everyone was in good voice for the more familiar carols but there were novelties such as Sarah Jinks' group singing the Armenian “Carol of the Bells”.

Many thanks to Philomena who managed, at short notice, to assemble a Polish choir to give us "Bóg sie rodzi" (God is being born), conducted the ensembles, acted as M.C. and crafted the ingenious programme for a very entertaining and enjoyable evening.

December