53
Bo r l a s i a n 2 0 1 3
In School
our French exchanges who were sat in the audience.
Going from strength to strength, we carried on to the
Christmas church service having picked up another couple
of members and sang a carol to the tune of Greensleeves,
accompanied by Ross Kelly on the classical guitar and Alex
Garrett on the tambourine. This was again a success, and
by the Leavers’ Concert at the end of April we were able
to pull off a ramshackle rendition of ‘Uptown Girl’ thanks
to a rehearsal in the interval just before we were due to
go on stage, which again was one of the highlights of the
evening. Madriguys is hugely successful at every show
it does, and there is a reason why the choir does so well:
people want to turn up every Tuesday lunchtime because
it’s fun, rather than because they have to or feel obliged
to. We are able to really play around with performances,
organising a blazer-over-the-shoulder finger-clicking
routine in the wings before we come on or having Chris
shout “Is that an iceberg?” at the end of our Titanic cover, a
freedom that we have without a conductor on stage that
makes the choir so enjoyable and popular.
I also took on a new challenge in November by joining
Cantorum, the school’s main mixed choir which has
around fifty members. Despite being a minority in the
choir, the boys are still represented well and we certainly
make ourselves heard. Joining at the start of the run up
to the church service, my voice seemed to break for a
second time and I made the right of passage into the bass
section, leaving the tenors behind. With my experience
from Madriguys I was able to pick it up reasonably quickly
and I was soon loving Cantorum just as much, despite the
requirement to be a bit more professional. My highlight
of the year was undoubtedly performing ‘O Magnum
Mysterium’ in the Christmas church service, a fantastic
arrangement that was made even better by being able to
sing it with so many other talented musicians from across
the school and to be conducted by Dr Parsons, who gives
the choir an incredibly professional sound and who we are
all able to get on well with.
Madriguys and Cantorum are very much a big part of the
senior music experience at Borlase and almost all senior
boys who study music or who just play an instrument in
one of the ensembles want to be a part of at least one
of the choirs. One of the greatest strengths of the choirs
is that anyone can turn up without having to audition
and give it a go, and most people choose to carry on for
the rest of their time at Borlase. Although, admittedly,
Borlase is a mixed grammar school with an incredibly
strong Performing Arts department rather than an all-
boys comprehensive, Dr Parsons has made singing,
especially for boys, central to the culture of senior music
at the school as it is now something that pretty much all
senior musicians try out at some point during their time
here. Nevertheless, I’m sure his uncanny resemblance to a
certain TV choirmaster played a part in the huge success
that is boys’ singing at the moment in Borlase.
Liam Thorpe Y12
2D Glasses
After being seen smiling with surprise in
The Henley
Standard
newspaper, with the other three quarters of 2D
Glasses, I was asked to write an article regarding what
brought about this exposure in the press. I thought I would
take the opportunity to mention some of the experiences
that come with being a member of a contemporary band,
for anyone with any interest or aspiration towards such
things.
Join a band. If you enjoy music, if you want a hobby, if you
have any experience with an instrument, if you just like
singing, if you want to build your confidence, join a band.
As an aged and witheringYear 12 I advise you, get involved
in as much as you can at Borlase. Joining a band is one of
the best ways to do this. Borlase is excellent for helping
you along. We have yearly Rock Nights and concerts to
play in to get practice, we have lots of lovely music rooms
to rehearse and record, we have Jenny to help you out with
any tech problems, and you have us 6
th
Form students to
ask as much as you want until we tell you to shush please
we are very busy. Basically, being in a band is fab.
The band which I am in, 2D Glasses, is made up of, aside
from me, Ross Kelly, Oliver Seber and Robin Jacob-Owens;
other Borlasians. I’ve actually been in various bands of
different incarnations since right back to year 7. But the
current incarnation has been around a few years now. You
may have seen us in an assembly or at Rock Night. By now
we’ve played many many concerts, both within school and
out, including Penn Festival, the Henley Youth Festival and
at Reading Rock Academy. The great thing about being
in a band is it’s all down to you, you play and practise as
much as you put your mind to and make all the decisions
together. You make the music you want to and any success
is solely down to you not someone telling you how to go
about it. Independence, independence is the best thing
about being part of a band.
Thisbringsme to the reasoning for our appearance ina local
newspaper. On the 1
st
of June, the sun rose, unexpectedly
intensely, over Henley. Pathetic fallacy was with us, and
we needed all the support we could get, because that day
marked the Henley Music on the Meadows battle of the
bands. We assembled, laden with kit on a quaint field with
a steel pagoda. Soon, we were on stage performing the
cursory ‘sound check’ to test the equipment prior to our
performance. A sunny afternoon went by. We were set to
