Last weekend it was an honour to return to Saffron Hall to celebrate our amazing musicians. For most, they had never performed at this iconic venue and returning once more was a very nervous time. Months of planning, over 230 musicians, around 500 in the audience. Our musical community at Simon Balle was once again coming back together.
Saffron Hall is about inspiring our musicians in all year groups, allowing them to appreciate their musical pathway, route of progression and allowing them to come together as a team and a community. We have spent so long apart. Here, we had the opportunity to come together in spectacular style. At this concert, we tried to allow as many musicians as possible to have their ‘moment’, especially those who are about to leave us, taking their musical journey to pastures new. We brought in new ideas, such as the primary orchestra (all 80 of them) performing with senior musicians. We reminded everyone how amazing the 60 piece Concert Band is, along with our Guitar ensemble, Brass, Junior Wind and others. Saffron Hall was alive with singing from our youngest to our adult community choir. Alumni, many of whom had missed out in recent years, came back to support us and show how connected to Simon Balle Music they still are. What a community.
Mark Taylor
Director of Music
Going to Saffron Hall was an amazing experience: from the very start of rehearsals in the morning to the last second of the last song about 8 o’clock at night.
It was fun performing with children from the Larch right through to sixth form in an amazing hall with fabulous acoustics. I performed in junior wind, concert band, Saxidentals and the choir, and with a rendition of ‘Fix You’ that all the choirs sang together. I joined concert band only recently, but it has been wonderful to play with really talented people: I’ve learned so much already.
Concert band played some well-known songs like a mix of James Bond theme tunes, Sweet Caroline and Make you Feel my Love, however, my favourite song of the evening was definitely the theme song from the musical ‘Six’ - the amazing Simon Balle Big Band really did it justice. I am so inspired by Big Band - both because of the music and the fact that everyone smiles when they hear Big Band play!
Merry W
Last weekend, I went to saffron hall, I really enjoyed the atmosphere, I thought that it would be a long day but it passed very quickly as we were all talking and playing together. I found it really exciting because I knew that loads of people would be coming to see us perform and we were playing somewhere where we hadn’t before.. I enjoyed the concert as the stage was spacious and it was my first time playing in Concert Band. On top of Concert Band I was in Junior wind and Saxidentals. My favourite performance that I didn’t play in was Big Band as it looked as though everyone was having fun and it inspired me to get really good at the Saxophone so that I could join. I look forward to being part of more experiences like this in the future.
Audrey P
