Fall Concert

The musical ensembles of the Fall Concert

Monday, November 11, 2019

This year’s Fall Concert, a popular annual event featuring many talented student musicians, demonstrated once again that the music program at The Pennington School is thriving. Instrumental ensembles, under the direction of Donald Dolan, joined forces with vocal ensembles, led by James Horan, to provide a memorable evening of performances that showcased many student soloists.

The Jazz Band kicked things off with Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” and went on charm the audience with Count Basie’s classic “One O’Clock Jump.” The band’s set concluded with Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island.”

Vocal ensembles followed, with the Upper School Chorus and Pennington Singers performing individually and together. Selections included “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers, Ruth Schram’s setting of Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” and “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)” by the Australian group Hillsong United. Horan’s own arrangements added to Luther Vandross’s “Brand New Day” from The Wiz, and “You Say” recorded by Lauren Daigle. Horan created both the vocal and instrumental arrangement for Gore and Pitchford’s setting of Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric” from the movie Fame.

The Orchestra took a more classical tack, beginning with the sprightly Overture to Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. The ensemble then played James Leith MacBeth Bain’s haunting “Brother James’s Air.” The orchestral segment concluded with “Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity” from Gustav Holst’s suite The Planets.

The evening’s delights were not yet over, however, as all of the vocal and instrumental ensembles combined in a stirring rendition of Katharine Lee Bates and Samuel Ward’s “America the Beautiful” to end the concert. The audience was invited to sing along.

Even after the Fall Concert, Pennington’s instrumental musicians had more to contribute. Just nine days later, on November 20, the Orchestra and Jazz Band joined forces with a string duo, wind ensemble, jazz trio, and rock ensemble to present an all-instrumental concert in the Stainton Hall Lecture Center. Music is indeed in the air at Pennington!