Sounds of Swing

14 March 2016

The Holy Cross & St Mary Church in Quainton reverberated to the Sounds of Swing on Friday 11 March. This was a concert given to a large audience by the Big Band with guest singers.
The evening started with a couple of Glen Miller favourites, ‘Pennsylvania 6-5000’ and ‘Tuxedo Junction’, and continued with a varied programme of music from the 20s to the 50s.

Our guest singers for the night all gave fantastic renditions of their songs; Anastasia Grafftey-Smith (Lower Sixth, Queen’s) was first with ‘Dream A Little Dream’ followed by Nia Brown (Upper Sixth, Nugent) with ‘The Man I Love’ and ‘Nice Work If You Can Get It’ by Emily Woodhead (Upper Sixth, Nugent). Our second half singers; Bella Coldstream (Lower Sixth, Lyttelton), Lewis Bell (Lower Sixth, Grenville) and Lucy Sutherland (Fifth Form, Nugent) also gave very convincing performances, and balanced out some very lively numbers by the Big Band. We had some great instrumental solos from Finlay Sutherland (Fifth Form, Grafton) and Emily Woodhead on trumpet and from Henry McQuitty (Fifth Form, Walpole) on drums. It is great to have such a good rhythm section driving the band with Henry on drums, Alex McQuitty (Upper Sixth, Walpole) on bass and Lewis Bell on piano. Even after encores we left the audience asking for more.

The Church was very grateful for the £430 profit which went towards their funds. Many thanks to Miles Nottage for his wonderful accompaniments for all of the soloists, and to Sarah Searle for all of her support before, during and after the event.

Nigel Gibbon, Head of Brass, Wind and Percussion