View from the Green Room: Music is the space between the notes
SETU Orchestra Concert at St. Patrick's Gateway. Photo: Joe Evans
It’s a glorious night of sunshine and music at the Gateway for SETU Orchestra’s summer proms and the sold-out Gateway church certainly gets its money’s worth.
A variety concert that’s packed with splendid orchestral favourites and is certainly a poster-work for the amazing work in musicianship that’s currently at play in the Music Department of SETU.
The opening prologue, conducted by Stephen Mackey with leader Amber Hamshad, to Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story shatters any illusions of peaceful transition from West Side slum apartments to luxurious Manhattan condos with jarring bells, noisy thumps, shrill whistles and composition crashes.
I just love Bernstein’s prologue. It’s a composition in tri-bar ba-da-daaah and is packed with tension, jaunting melody, sudden stops and starts that inevitably pounds into a riot of power and pace. The separation of Jets and Sharks is well marked in the score of up-tempo sharp movement that gives way every now and then to a bluesy, romantic Latino flow that keeps its audience guessing.
Sibelius’s Valse Triste (Sad Waltz), conducted by Andrew Sheeran, is a short, melancholic orchestral piece composed by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius in 1903. The music captures a ghostly, dream-like scene of a dying woman experiencing a feverish final waltz with spectral guests, before Death arrives at the door.
As you can imagine, it’s jam-packed with atmosphere. The barely audible opening of the waltz, the staring-down of the unwanted spectral guests, the wild and increasingly eerie waltz and the sudden, terrifying knock on the door for the arrival of the inflexible doorman when the dancers disappear in a shriek and the music whispers into nothingness.
The SETU Guitar ensemble is great fun. Led by Dylan Bible, Joey Whelan and Jonathan Bulfin, who arranges the intriguing ‘Bach Swing’ that opens with Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue, that somehow manages to bring a feel of swing to Jonathan Bulfin’s arrangement. ‘Wonderful Land’ is a Shadows tune with some smashing riffs and the Fr. Ted Theme, composed by the Divine Comedy, has the Gateway audience smiling and humming.
The Dillons – sisters Sophie and Clara, along with cousin Jasmine – are supported by members of the SETU Guitar Ensemble on the folk-rock Staves song ‘Wisely and Slow’ that opens a cappella with tight harmonies that never waver. ‘Blue Ridge Mountains’ is warm and lush with tender lyrics and smashing harmonies that delights.
Amber Shamshad, who is the leader of the SETU Orchestra, is a superb violinist despite her tender years. Seventeen years young, she’s just got distinction on her Grade 8 exam with the Associated Board and her playing of the William Ten Have ‘Allegro Brilliante’ is astonishing. Accompanied by Sinéad Dempsey Crowley, it’s a very tuneful and technically demanding virtuoso showpiece.
Amber has to combine two distinct themes here – a sparkling, vigorous tune contrasts with a romantic, flowing section. There’s lots of technique on display – with tricky string crossings, racing arpeggios and frequent double-stops. Audiences and players love this piece because it’s full of show-off moments that delight.
Tonight the SETU Music School acknowledges the contribution of recently deceased staff member Deirdre Scanlon, who was the longest serving staff member in the Music School, with a new award – The Deirdre Scanlon Young String Player Award. And the first recipient of the award, presented by the Scanlon Family who are all present tonight, is Amber Shamshad.
The concert closes out with the SETU Traditional Music Orchestra directed by Nora Kavanagh. There’s unusual variety to this section with touches of swing and bosa nova in the Tommy People’s Reel with staccato rhythm giving way to toe-tapping and hand claps from the audience. It’s a delight to hear second year SETU music student Kate Harrison’s composition ‘The Shoemaker's Hornpipe’ based on the old Grimm fairytale of 'The Elves and the Shoemaker’. "Think of the little elves working away in the background," says a very proud Kate. And I did as I listened to the plucking strings and the delightful tune on harp and flute.
A smashing concert at St Patrick’s Gateway on a beautiful May night from the SETU Music School where music is the space between the notes.
