Schools in chorus at annual music festival

A total of three hundred and thirty-six children from St Mary’s Pulborough, William Penn, Wisborough Green, Billingshurst Primary, Loxwood, Rudgwick, Plaistow and Kirdford, Shipley, Slinfold and The Weald entertained family and friends with a superb selection of well-known songs from musicals through the decades. Pupils (and staff!) have spent the last term and a half working incredibly hard in both choir sessions and their music lessons to learn all of the songs involved.

Songs such as ‘Singin’ In The Rain, The Inch Worm, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Consider Yourself, We’re All In This Together, Under The Sea, We Go Together, Starlight Express, You’ve Got A Friend In Me, Let It Go’, and the ‘Circle of Life’ were chosen to enable the children to learn songs from a wide variety of different productions. Some songs were sung in unison, others with complicated harmonies.

Children from a number of schools wrote and read narrations to introduce the songs. The evening ended with a rousing rendition of ‘So Long, Farewell’ with the final departing ‘Goodbye’ sung by members of the audience.

The event was brilliantly co-organised by Alyson Heath from St Mary’s School in Pulborough and Caroline Baker – Weald Locality Project Manager.

The children were conducted by Emily Barden, Leader of Choirs and Voice in West Sussex and accompanied on the grand piano by Ian Gardner from The Weald School.

Pupils have thoroughly enjoyed rehearsing for this event and were incredibly proud of all that they achieved.

Huge thanks must go to all the staff who worked with their choirs in their own schools, and to all the children who worked so hard to make the event so worthwhile – congratulations on a truly fantastic performance!

Report and picture contributed by Tina Kear, William Penn School.