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Our first concert of the tour was nothing short of fabulous!

The students played and sang beautifully, and it was a real pleasure to be in the audience and experience music performed with such quality and commitment.

We have used ACFEA as our tour company for many years now, and one of the reasons is that they use local couriers who know the area, know the concert venues and have good contacts with the local community and who can help to generate audiences that make the concerts feel extra special. We estimate that there were around 180 people in the audience this evening, they warmly welcomed the choir and the orchestra and were incredibly enthusiastic throughout. It makes such a difference to a tour if, after travelling around 1000 miles, you perform to good audiences in lovely venues, makes it all seem worthwhile!

The venue itself, as you will have seen from the rehearsal photos, is nothing short of spectacular. The acoustic in the hall is sympathetic and magnifies the sound superbly so the fabulous solos from Jade Segler on violin and Abi Taylor, Libby Marsland and Michael Needle came across beautifully. The overall sound of both the orchestra and choir came across as extremely polished and mature beyond their years. It's unfair to pick out highlights from tonight (as I had goosebumps pretty much throughout) so I won't do that, but in the interests of accuracy and so you know what was performed here is the running order:

CYO: Romeo and Juliet overture
CYCh: Laudate Dominum (Abi Taylor solo)
CYCh: Shenandoah (Libby Marsland solo)
CYCh: Abide With Me
CYCh: Sure On This Shining Night
CYO: Two Pieces from Schindler's List (Jade Segler solo violin)
CYO: Vltava
CYCh: Sleep

Then encores of
CYCh: Underneath The Stars (Michael Needle solo)
CYO: Nimrod
CYO: Slavonic Dance

We know that you are rightly already proud of your kids, and so tonight all you need to know is that they represented themselves, Northamptonshire and NMPAT perfectly, and if that is the benchmark for the rest of the trip then we're going to be in for a superb next three concerts!

Photos and clips attached with more to follow, I'm going to need to download a thesaurus I think as having proof read this blog I believe I may have already exhausted my superlative collection?!

It really was a brilliant concert!!!Read more