It would have been so easy to have more players with just one piece each to play. But the format of having four scholars from Fettes College each performing two, three or four times during a concert was far more demanding and in many ways interesting for the audience.
Sophia Boyd sang songs from Scarlatti, Fauré, Head and at the very end an old favourite of several nodding heads in the audience, A Damsel in Distress from Gershwin. Sophia was brave enough to introduce what she was to sing as some of it was not in English.
Gordon Robertson, on the other hand, had no need for an introduction to his singing as his Purcell, Vaughan-Williams and Quilter was sung in English with impressive diction.
Hyunsun Yoon opened the concert on her cello with an elegy from Fauré and later we enjoyed her playing of the first movement of the Cello Concerto in A minor by Saint-Saens.
The youngest of the four was James Goodenough who is 15 and bears the same surname as the accompanist. His father David has quite recently become Director of Music at St Cuthbert’s but is also Director of Music, returning after an earlier stint, at Fettes College. James has completed Grade 7 on the piano and his choice of Mozart, Liszt and Hough demonstrated his mettle.
Event: Wednesday 24 August 2011 at 1.10pm