Shrewsbury Schools’ Summit

The two schools have been keen to establish and develop links across the 11000km ever since the conception of the school in Bangkok that has already risen to equal and even surpass the best education provided within the city of many schools. Those links are being cemented and gilded as 35 members of the Shrewsbury International School Symphony Orchestra bring the warmth of its music to one of the coldest weeks in the UK winter so far.

Taking siege of the 150 acre campus in the brand new Mary Sidney House, built in preparation for the invasion of girls into the Sixth Form for the forthcoming academic year, the diverse host of nationalities, ages, gender and experiences soon unify to display to the surrounding young gentlemen not only its prodigious talents but even more significantly a commitment and dedication hitherto unwitnessed. The visitors soon realise that they have been transported to a time warp where the clock has little supremacy, where locked doors bar the way to 5am practice and where adults exhort them to stay in bed. Undaunted they find spare rooms in which to squirrel away scales, studies and sonatinas interspersed with massed tournaments on the ping-pong table.

A visit to the UK has to be more than just work, however, and provides ample opportunities for expanding their knowledge of music (Choral Evensong at Lichfield Cathedral and transfixed to a taped commentary at The Beatles’ Story); of football (sitting in the Kop at Anfield Stadium); of life at the Front (Imperial War Museum) and in the Factory (Lowry Art Gallery). Then onto the Greater Metropolis with the Albert Hall, site of the English Last Night of the Proms, a pale shadow of Bangkok’s; world famous Music Colleges to which many of the students aspire; the awe-inspiring grandeur of the Natural History Museum and views of all of London from the London Eye and from the River Thames itself.

The purpose, focus and culmination of the entire week are the concerts themselves: a chamber concert by Shrewsbury International Music Scholars at St Chad’s Church in Shrewsbury and an orchestral concert featuring both schools combined in brass, wind, string and full orchestras at Shrewsbury School’s Alington Hall and the prestigious St John’s Smith Square, London.

During the chamber concert the audience is mesmerised by the remarkable talent of students as young as 11 years old: Yae Ram Park from S Korea chooses to perform a Paris Conservatoire entrance requirement work – Concertino by Chaminade - where her brilliant technique has impressed Sir James Galway himself in a recent masterclass held at Shrewsbury International School; Sarah Quan from America stuns both her accompanist and all who listen with amazement to her spirited performance of the final movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, with an interpretation and mastery well beyond her years.

The orchestral concert opens with a brass fanfare composed by Shrewsbury International School’s Principal Oboist, Peranat Dayananda from Thailand, and proceeds through showcases for both brass and then all the wind before the first half culminates with the first movement from Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins where leaders from both schools feature as the soloists, and Warlock’s Capriol Suite. The climax of the week’s work is fittingly through the final opus: Tchaikovsky’s dramatic, emotional Symphony No 5 that brings audiences at both venues to their feet in instinctive appreciation of the breadth and depth of the students’ skills, understanding and maturity, and resonates in everybody’s minds for days after. That different ends of the world can come together united by a common love, talent and commitment for music to create performances of such calibre is quite outstanding and brings together the two schools in a manner that can never be surpassed.

It is appropriate to leave the final words to one of Shrewsbury International School’s violists, Pete Dayananda from Thailand: “Throughout my years of being a member of the orchestra I shall always regards this experience as the most enjoyable and beneficial. We were faced with the challenges of Tchaik 5 and tackled them with determination, coming together in a short week to make music the Salopian style! At the end, all good times must come to an end, as life goes on and our journey together comes to a crossroad. Every grain of rice consumed, every drop of tap water drunk and every note played will be reduced to fragments of invaluable memories. The triumphant sound of the last chord will continue to echo in our memories for years to come.”

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