Holloway Children’s Choir Summer Concert: Videos (July 2018)

The Holloway Children’s Choir inaugural concert came after a term of very hard work from me and the children of the intermediate and advanced classes. They did a great job in spite of being slightly down on numbers (owing to my three week trip to the U.S., we had to organise the concert for late in July, so many children had already gone on holiday and were not in Tianjin for the concert). Still, this is a good foundation on which to build for our concerts in the new academic year, starting this week. THANKS to everyone who made it possible- especially the inestimable Stella Zhou.

I’ve uploaded some videos and photos from the concert:

《夏天即将来临》（英国中世纪民歌）Summer is a-coming in (a medieval folk song in the King’s Singers’ transcription, arranged by me into a 3-part canon):

China users:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzgwNzExODY3Mg==.html

《绿袖子》（十六世纪英国）Greensleeves (the famous 16th century folk song)

China users:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzgwMTk5NjAyNA==.html

The advanced class was joined by some of the more mature children from the intermediate class to sing Bach:

《耶稣、我新所慕喜乐》（巴赫）Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring by J.S. Bach, from his Cantata 147 (1723)

China users:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzgwMTk5NjAyOA==.html

I taught two of my own pieces to the choir. One was my re-worked setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins “curtal sonnet” Pied Beauty (adapted, with the greatest reverence- and apologies!- to Hopkins, so my Chinese students could cope with Hopkins’ language). This was originally premiered (mainly in just one vocal part) by the children of the Gong Geng Academy Summer School in 2017: http://georgehollowaycomposer.com/?p=517

I succeeded in teaching my children to sing a newer version in quite complex three-part counterpoint (albeit with room for improvement!):

《斑驳之美》（卢长剑）片段 Pied Beauty by George Holloway (extract)

China users:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzgwNDYzOTM3Ng==.html

The second was the suite of my “opera for children’s choir”, Cao Chong Weighs the Elephant, which most of the children had in fact sung back in January:

http://georgehollowaycomposer.com/?p=519

This time we sang a suite of the choral pieces from the opera. Here’s the joyful finale (when Cao Chong finally works out a method of weighing the elephant, and all his friends react happily):

《曹冲称象》终曲（卢长剑）Cao Chong Weighs the Elephant (finale) by George Holloway