Sunday School of Rock
(SSoR)
Concert - Dec 2018
‘White Christmas’
A team photo beforehand.
The Concert is about to begin; with a countdown from 5 minutes to add to the anticipation…
The first group number was ‘What child is this?’, by Vanessa Williams: a beautiful Christmas song to get us into the Advent mood.
Emily, sang ‘Scars to your beautiful’. Rach, the co-leader of SSoR, and Emily prepared this arrangement between them. In her second year in SSoR, this was Emily's first solo performance.
Charlotte T played a very intricate Chopin nocturne - Nocturne in C# minor by Frederic Chopin, a very lovely piece.
Nicole and Cynthia sang ‘Up’ by Olly Murs. Natacha was meant to have sang this with Cynthia, but unfortunately Natacha had practically lost her voice on the day of the concert, and certainly wasn’t in a position to sing a solo. Nicole, the other co-leader, kindly stepped in. Natacha stayed around to help with the rehearsals on the day, and we look forward to hearing her singing at next year’s concert.
Sophie sang ‘Faith song’ by Amy Wadge, a thoughtful song, with Hope playing percussion, and Dan B on the guitar.
‘We 5 Kings’ was arranged by Rach to suit the quintet of instruments. This was the first occasion Jonathan A played the guitar since he had learnt to read music.
The first half continued with ‘Sweet Child of Mine’, by Guns n Roses, soloist Jonathan A. . And then, as is every rock-star’s dream, one of Jonathan’s guitar strings broke at the end! Cynthia did the vocals for this.
The final song of the first half was ‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year’ by Edward Pola, with solos by Carrie and Emily All the instrumentalists had their own part. Joel played for the first time with SSoR, this evening, having never had a formal guitar lesson before. All the other guitarists helped him along, and he played well and had a great time.
The Interval
In the interval the catering team, provided us with tasty seasonal refreshments!
The second half started with ‘I’m dreaming of a White Christmas’, by Bing Crosby with Harry singing a solo at the beginning and at the end. Harry and Rach amended the words to say ‘It’s December 8th and I’m longing to stay up late’ (at the after-party!). Harry won the hearts of everyone with his lovely singing!
Here are other lovely photos of Natacha, Cynthia and Vicky singing, Charlotte and Anna singing; Emily and Sophie preparing to sing.
Anna sang a lovely song called ‘Your wings’ by Lauren Daigle, a Christian singer.
Charlotte W then sand a lilting bluesy song called ‘Who’s Loving you’ by The Jackson 5.
Next Vicky and Nicole performed a song called ‘Nuvole Bianche’ [white clouds] by Ludovico Finaudi, a work in Italian that has featured in a number of films and TV productions.
Anna and Charlotte then sang a song ‘Winter things’, Ariana Grande, which reminded them of the day they always spend together each winter-time. Rach added a glockenspiel part to this piece, which was played by Hope.
We then had Daniel H playing ‘A Bridge over Troubled Water’ by Simon and Garfunkel, accompanied by guest performer, Jonathan H. Daniel truly played from the heart, and many were moved by the performance.
This was followed by something completely different as Dan B played ‘Rope’ by Foo Fighters, accompanied by a number in the SSoR band. It was a tricky song, with a lot of the rhythm being off-beat, but Dan performed it wonderfully.
Some more photos of the instrumentalists, including our passionate drummer, Hope; Vicky on the guitar; Joel also on the guitar; Daniel and Ethan on the trumpet.
Finally there was a whole band performance of ‘The Sleigh Ride’ by Leroy Anderson, with Sophie performing a solo. As they sang ‘Giddy up, giddy up, giddy up, let’s go, just look at the show, we’re riding in a wonderland of snow': suddenly 100s of balloons fell down from the ceiling, as snow! The audience joined in the singing, and there was even an encore, much to the surprize of the band!
A bit more about the ‘snow - balloons’: What with the Concert having a ‘White Christmas’ theme, we had to have falling snow… this had begun with a Christmas cracker play-off in the first half, when Ivan was chosen for the ‘Very special task’. As we were singing the part in the final song, ‘The Sleigh Ride: ‘in a wonderland of snow'’, Ivan was tasked to pull the rip cord, and down came 100’s of balloons, and everyone had a blast playing with the balloons!! A thank you to Beth and Sam for managing this, and to everyone who helped to blow up the balloons.
A big thank you to the Sound Team; and also to Hannah for operating the slides.
What a fantastic evening everyone had! A well done to SSoR - we look forward to the next concert! Many thanks to everyone who helped to make this evening happen!
And it was wonderful , through the ticket sales, and sales of cards and beautiful handmade tableware, to be able to raise money for Caring for Life, a charity that helps vulnerable people in the Leeds area; [over £1100 was raised through this evening].
If you would like to watch a recording of the concert, please email us on contact@hookchurch.org.