The Syndicate concert is an annual event, organised entirely by Upper 6th students from KEHS and KES. This year’s concert was on Saturday 30th June, only four days after the end of A-Level exams, so rehearsals were frantically packed into the week leading up to the concert. Despite the short preparation time, the concert featured a wide variety of performances to a high standard, in many different musical genres. Chamber music was a feature of the concert, with performances from a string trio, a wind trio, a saxophone quartet, a piano quartet, a string quartet and a string octet. The jazz group, featuring Mr Howard, a KES teacher retiring after 25 years of teaching, played two upbeat jazz numbers, and the vocal solos from Lily Gain, Satish Vazé and Shantanu Kundu were all beautifully performed. A choral ensemble followed by the orchestra, who performed the ‘Marriage of Figaro Overture’ by Mozart and Badelt’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, ably conducted by Alice Beardmore, ended the concert.
The concert was run as a charity event and over £450 was raised and donated to the Birmingham Children’s Hospital trust. All of the Upper 6th students involved would like to thank the KEHS and KES music staff for all of their help and support, and the PAC staff for helping the concert to run so smoothly. Great fun was had by all involved, both in the concert and in the preparations for it, and the concert proved to be a wonderful experience for all of the leaving musicians.
