House Unison and Harmony

House Unison Report

House Unisons, what an event!

Each year the house is tasked with competing in a inter-house singing competition. This year, after much thought, i.e. a night, we chose to change our song from Three Lions to Mr Brightside, two weeks before the competition. This proved to be a difficult, yet amusing challenge.

The Unison is possibly the most single time-consuming event of the year. Having been rehearsing every night for two weeks, we stepped onto the stage prepared and ready to sing our song. ‘Coming out of my cage...’ WOW I thought, for the first time the House came in on time and together. What a breakthrough, and this carried on throughout the song.

We attempted to make our song particularly striking by adding some Orchard actions, which we do each year. I have to say that I got a real surprise on the night to find that some of the actions had been choreographed in the 5 minutes prior to our performance, nevertheless with the 6th Form leading the way, the song was a success, and I can most certainly say that the House sang to the best of its abilities, and most definitely entertained the audience.

Well done to the entire House: it was a super effort.

House Harmony Report

After last year’s Harmony, this year we knew it was going to be difficult to top. We set about with the tremendous task of picking a piece of music which would include all the aspects of an entertaining Harmony the judge would be looking forward. We agreed that Short People, arranged by the King’s Singers would satisfy this.

Mr Drinkwater, a member of the Music Department, helped us with rehearsing the piece. We found it to be truly dynamic and considerably difficult to learn; nevertheless, we cracked on with it and soon found ourselves rehearsing without the music. Over the course of the next few days we progressed onwards and then it clicked, the moment when I thought we had a real chance of possibly winning this year.

It came to the day of the competition and the rehearsals weren’t going as well as we had hoped, one of our key stars had lost his voice, disaster striking at the last minute. The decision was made to stop rehearsing and allow our voices to rest.

Being second on stage we certainly felt the pressure, having missed Latham’s performance we had nothing to compare ourselves against, furthermore I wasn’t sure whether Ben’s voice would hold up. To my delight when we started singing Ben managed to draw in his voice and the song was pitched perfectly, a performance everyone deserves to be proud of. I am proud to say that I enjoyed singing for the House.

The following represented the House in Harmony:
Tristram Fane-Saunders
Greg Fearn
Michael Fang
Charlie Bracegirdle
Ben Nevill
Rowan Saunders
Dan Vincent