Music

On the 29th November, over 150 Reptonians, family and friends assembled on the stage in Pears School, preparing for Handel's Messiah - and that was just the choir. In total over 200 people were involved as Mus Soc reconvened for the second time since AJRB restarted the society with Mozart’s Requiem last year.

Messiah is arguably one of the most famous works ever written – it is said that it used to be done every five years by Mus Soc to ensure that every member of the school had the opportunity to sing it. However, this by no means makes it easy to perform. However, after 11 weeks of rehearsals and a further three hour rehearsal on the day, the piece was ready. Apart from Simon Kirkbride – our Bass soloist – who was stuck in Luxembourg. However, in the words of Queen “the show must go on” and Thorbjorn Gulbrandsoy appeared to take his place and over the next one and a half hours, an audience which filled Pears School was thrilled by a total of 42 numbers including: “Unto us a child is born” and the iconic “Halleluiah Chorus”.

I think that the performance will be remembered by both the participants and the audience for a long time to come.