Music

Byron Consort is Harrow’s elite vocal ensemble, consisting of around twenty Harrow boys and four or five adults. The choir sings mainly unaccompanied sacred and secular music, most of which comes from the Renaissance, Romantic and Modern periods. Several of the boys are ex-choristers from leading cathedral and collegiate choirs. The choir sings regularly at Harrow, as well as at services and concerts in many other major venues such as St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Cathedral, other cathedrals in the south of England, a range of college chapels in Oxford and Cambridge and many London churches. The choir regularly tours abroad to locations which have recently included the USA, Canada, Russia, Italy, Norway, Spain, South Africa, Kenya, China, Hong Kong and Singapore. Their repertoire includes works by great composers such as Bruckner, Byrd, Duruflé, Gabrieli, Gibbons, Holst, Lassus, Messiaen, Palestrina, Poulenc, Purcell, Rachmaninov, Rheinberger, Sullivan, Tallis, Victoria and Walton. The choir also specialises in performing works by contemporary composers such as Kim André Arnesen, Jonathan Dove, Ola Gjeilo, Grayston Ives, Gabriel Jackson, Morten Lauridsen, James MacMillan, Owain Park, Philip Stopford and John Tavener and takes part in the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music.

Chapel Choir is one of the largest ensembles to rehearse and perform regularly throughout the year. It currently numbers more than 60 boys and provides music for at least one service each Sunday during term time as well as for special services and concerts. All new boys are voice-tested upon entering Harrow, and the treble line mainly comprises new Shell boys. Their repertoire includes works by Poulenc, Chilcott, Saleeb, Piccolo, Byrd, Gombert, Faure, Berkeley, Howells, Faure, Haydn, Dyson, Bach, Jackson, Walton, Britten, Duruflé, Poulenc, Adelman, Mozart, Handel and Purcell.

Choral Society comes together in the Spring term to rehearse and perform large-scale choral works with orchestra and professional soloists. Every year, about 150 boys sing alongside parents and members of the community. Senior instrumentalists find themselves in the orchestra, so nearly a quarter of the School performs. Their repertoire includes works by Bach, Walton, Orff, Poulenc, Brahms, Bernstein, Handel, Elgar, Haydn, Verdi and Vaughan Williams.

Harmony Choir sings in up to two or three parts and welcomes boys with all levels of musical experience. The Choir numbers some 50 members from all year groups. It meets twice weekly and sings in Chapel for Anglican Morning and Evening Prayer and for Catholic Mass. The Choir also makes a valuable contribution to the Remembrance and Carol services. Recruitment for the Choir is done through auditioning every new boy to the School. Many continue in the Choir right through to the Sixth Form. Their repertoire includes works by Bach, Elgar, Fauré, Franck, Handel, Stanford and many others.

Big Band has an extensive repertoire, covering all the greats from Ellington and Basie to Miller and Dorsey, as well as Latin, rock and modern arrangements. The line-up is that of a typical big band, with saxophones, trombones, trumpets and rhythm section, with some boys also being featured as vocalists. With at least one major concert each term, the Band prepares around 40 titles per year. Recent highlights include a very successful tour to Asia, as well as our annual gig with the girls of Queen’s College, London and our Tea Dance at a local community centre.

Chamber Music is a major feature at Harrow and a large number of boys benefit from it. We usually have around 12 chamber groups including piano trios, baroque ensembles, string quartets, piano quintets, violin quartets,cello quartets and numerous small wind groups Every year, the School submits around four ensembles to the National Chamber Music Competition for Schools. In every year since 2000, at least one has won through to the finals at St John Smith's Square. Harrow also co-founded The South East Schools' Chamber Music Competition in 2011, in which 60 ensembles participate. Within the School, around 12 groups compete each year in the Smouha Chamber Music Competition, while luminaries such as Angela Hewitt, the Chilingirian Quartet, Freddy Kempf and Acoustic Triangle often give masterclasses. Our Chamber music repertoire includes works by Haydn, Beethoven, Suk, Dvorak, Saint-Saens, Bridge, Faure, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Mahler, Elgar, Schumann, Borodin and Tchaikovsky.

Symphonic Winds consists of about 80 boys who have attained Grade 5 or above on instruments ranging from the piccolo to the tuba and the triangle to the timpani. The Band performs in a major concert each term and also provides the musical entertainment for Town Carols and Speech Day. The repertoire is typical of a modern wind band with music from stage and screen, as well as more traditional military music usually associated with a marching band.

Harrow School Pipe Band practise in the Alex Fitch Room in the War Memorial Building. Standards vary from complete beginners to those playing marches, reels, jigs and hornpipes at a very high standard. Highlight performances include Remembrance Sunday and Speech Day. There are various opportunities for solo pipers to perform at House events and outside engagements.

Jazz Ensemble provides an opportunity for boys to work in a small group and concentrate on improvisation. The group consists of a rhythm section with a flexible front line of melodic instruments. The Ensemble is a place for boys to be musically creative and explore jazz. It performs throughout the year and is popular at events that need a certain ambience. Their recent repertoire includes works by Calderazzo, Gershwin, Zawinul and Coltrane.

Junior Brass Ensemble has a flexible line up. As well as being a performing ensemble in its own right, it is a training ground for younger boys who will move up to the senior group.

Kandinsky Ensemble is an occasional ensemble named after the Russian abstract painter, and specialises in large scale chamber music from the early 20th century to the present day. It is a flexible ensemble in terms of personnel, dependent on the work being performed. Their repertoire includes works by Glass, Gershwin, Bernstein, Arnold, Ives, Poulenc, Ravel, Martland, Martinu, Steve Reich and Copland.

Rock and pop thrives at Harrow, with a number of bands rehearsing regularly. There is at least one rock concert every term, as well as 'battle of the bands' competitions at other schools. Soloists, singer-songwriters and bands also make regular recordings and videos in the School Studio. The Mortimer Singer Prize is a competition with two classes, one for solo singers accompanying themselves on acoustic guitar, and another for rock bands. This competition is adjudicated by a visiting musician and, in recent years, these have included Mike d'Abo (OH) of Manfred Mann and Graham Gouldman from 10cc.

Senior Brass Ensemble is a traditional five piece brass group for more advanced players. It performs music made famous by the acclaimed Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and the Canadian Brass Quintet.

The String Ensemble is our smaller orchestra and tends to incorporate string players who are not generally involved in any other ensemble music. It consists of 14-16 boys who are at Grade 3 to 6 standard. Their repertoire includes works by Vivaldi, Handel, Grieg, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Bizet.

Symphony Orchestra is Harrow’s largest orchestra and consists of about 70 boys. The string players are all of at least Grade 6 standard and the woodwind and brass members are usually of Grade 8 standard. The Orchestra performs in three concerts each year and also accompanies Churchill Songs and Speech Day Songs. Once a year, the Orchestra joins forces with The John Lyon School for a Commemoration Concert and the senior players form the nucleus of Harrow School Sinfonietta for an annual Concerto Evening. In November 2017, the Orchestra accompanied the singing of Churchill Songs at the Royal Albert Hall in front of an audience of 5,500. Their repertoire includes works by Rossini, Elgar, Wagner, Brahms, Britten, Rachmaninov, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Bizet, Walton, Liszt, Franck, Shostakovich, Verdi, Sibelius, Rimsky-Korsakov, Arnold, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Suk, Schubert, Saint-Saens and Berlioz.

The String Orchestra is Harrow’s elite chamber ensemble, which typically consists of around 22- 24 players, all of whom are Music Award Holders. The group has performed successfully at various concerts within and outside the school, including the Royal Albert Hall. It has participated in a number of music tours and workshops to the Far East, including China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand. The ensemble is recognised for its high quality of music making and has collaborated with Nationally recognised chamber ensembles, such as St Martin in the Fields, The English Chamber Orchestra, Molto Musica Ensemble and others. The repertoire includes mainstream works by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Rossini, Dvorak, Janacek, Elgar, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Berg and Britten.

Wind Ensemble develops the chamber music skills of woodwind and brass players. It varies in size from a sextet to an ensemble of 12 or more, dependent on the work being performed.

The Music and Drama departments frequently collaborate on joint productions. Recent whole-School productions have included Oh! What a Lovely War, Sondheim's Assassins, and Shakespeare in Love. Whole-School productions are in addition to the myriad House Plays, which frequently include a musical dimension.

Harrow’s musicals typically feature a band comprising both talented boy musicians and professionals, who together produce a very impressive sound to support the actors and singers. Boys also play significant roles backstage and in the sound and lighting departments, developing their skills by making use of our state-of-the-art theatre facilities and learning from specialist production staff. The performing casts are often made up entirely of Harrow boys, but for some large-scale productions female roles are filled by girls from other local schools including nearby arts colleges and Harrow’s partnered maintained-sector schools.

A recent highlight for the Music and Drama departments was a production of Twelfth Night, which was performed both in the School’s own Ryan Theatre and also at Shakespeare’s Globe on Bankside. For this performance, which marked the 30th anniversary of the School’s first performance at the newly completed Globe in 1998, incidental music was written by a Beak and additional compositions were written by boys for the occasion. In 2022, the Music and Drama departments collaborated on a major production of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, bringing together a company of more than 150 performers from ten schools and community organisations across the borough, as part of the School's 450th anniversary celebrations.

Similarly, for House plays and other dramatic productions, some of the most talented boys write and/or perform their own incidental music. Performances in the Ryan theatre can make use of the orchestral pit, although in recent years, musical ensembles have often been placed on stage among specially built sets.

The theatre is a fine example of a context in which boys with different talents collaborate to produce moving, memorable and astonishingly professional performances. It is in the development of such productions that many lasting friendships are forged among boys of different Houses and age groups.