Last Saturday evening saw our first Musical Evening of the year – and an evening to remember it certainly was. Such a wealth of talent in the House this year led to a full and varied programme and was attended by many guest students following the firework display on Duke’s Meadow.
Our compere of the evening was the very entertaining Jack Smith, who ran the proceedings with wit and flair and never failed to keep the audience interested. Opening the show were Nicolas Grunberg on guitar with Thierry Tan at the mike performing Wonderwall by Oasis – there was no lack of audience participation in this popular rendition. Next Alexander von Boetticher displayed his talent on the violin with Partita no.2 by Bach, a beautifully executed piece. Aditya Ranjan and Harry Secrett were next up with ‘Crazy’ by Nils Barclay – again the audience joined in enthusiastically, then Aditya sang ‘Grenade’ by Bruno Mars - that boy has hidden depths! We then took a step back in time in popular music as a group of singers gathered (together with Mr C!) to sing an old favourite from the 1930s to Constantin Weiss’ able accompaniment on ukulele to ‘Leaning on a Lamp Post’ by George Formby - great fun and a rather unexpected interpretation of a Northern classic by a new millennium German student, but it worked! Kevin Leung and Harry were next up with ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room’ – not sure to whom that was directed but I’m sure they had their own ideas! The first half ended with Mr C on guitar singing a Kinks’ favourite, ‘Lola’ – those who were unfamiliar with the song may have been a little surprised by the lyrics, but the crowd showed their appreciation warmly.
After hot nibbles and drinks in the interval, the second half began with Jan Sokol singing, rather unexpectedly, a Chinese Song ‘Tong Zheo De Ni’ – haven’t a clue what the lyrics meant, but it was impressive anyway! Then our temporary IC student, Adam Renton, gamely played and sang that Bob Dylan classic ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’, followed by Thierry Tan with a lovely song ‘A Team’ by Ed Sheehan. Khush James and Ollie Ayling then treated us to ‘Take 5’– a very smooth performance of a well-known classic. Next came an amazingly accomplished performance of Chopin’s Ballade No.1 on the piano by Jay Vern Lim (necessarily a little shortened, but none the less amazing for that!), then Jay joined Johnny Cheung and Jason Yuen singing ‘Yellow' by Coldplay. Jay went on to perform with Johnny, Kevin and Daryl Leong a Blues Bossa Nova and then the evening ended with our own resident Hendrix, Johnny, performing ‘Surfing with the Alien’ by Joe Satriani – flash just isn’t the word!
Well done to all the performers and to Jack and Jay Vern who organised the programme so efficiently. A great evening was had by all, and we can’t wait for the next opportunity to show off the IC’s talent!