Reporter: Dr Joe Dawson
Date online: 12/06/2008

The first Academy Concert of the new academic year kicked off well as more children and lifelong learners in music practised their skills in front of a sympathetic audience in the glorious acoustic of St Mary the Baum.

This was the 15th monthly event and the formula seems to be working well: each second Saturday of the month and from 6 - 7 pm, giving people the rest of the evening to themselves.

Progress was the name of the game with Amanda Harrison, Laura & Caitlin Davies and Jennifer Novotny demonstrating how much they have developed through the singing grades, visibly gaining in confidence and ability.

Lucy and Jenny Smethurst were first involved in the early months as pianists, later becoming inspired to sing. They sang a duet as a warm up and self-belief booster before each singing a solo from their forthcoming Grade 6 examinations. Jenny will be off to Nottingham University shortly, now including singing as one of her musical assets.

Men were well represented too with William Hobhouse as a serenading Don Giovanni, Craig Milne as a philosophical Phantom of the Opera, and Raymond Novotny with a poetic rendering of Schubert's "Der Lindenbaum."

David Finney exchanged his spiritual role for the temporal and excelled himself with an emotionally charged and carefully poised "Bring him home" from "Les Miserables."

The final section was devoted to the music of Benjamin Britten Ailsa Mainwaring, Penny Nicholls and Adam Marshall each singing examples of his brilliant, if not difficult settings of the English language.

Eleven-year-old Adam has just been appointed Head Chorister of the Voluntary Choir at Manchester Cathedral coinciding with starting at high school. He let his hair down with "O what a beautiful morning" from "Oklahoma" with the audience joining in.

Much of the work at these Academy concerts is experimental and based on examinations and is of inestimable value to the performers, whilst at the same time making fascinating and varied experiences for the audience.

A Rochdale Academy Concert
Toad Lane Performing Arts Centre
14 September 2002