  Fraser Jamieson.
Marcus Swietlicki accompanied by Simon Coverdale on piano
Zoe Galbraith
Ewan Booth
accompanied by Margaret Jaffrey-Smith on piano.
Part of the audience
Fraser Jamieson
The musicians
|
| | | Classical Youth Concert - 15th October |
Report and photos - Jim Paterson
(LtoR) Zoe Galbraith, Ewan Booth, Fraser Jamieson, Marcus Swietlicki
St.
Mungo's played host to the Classical Youth Concert, arranged by the
Rotary of Penicuik. Some 100 people swelled the audience to hear Tenor Marcus Swietlicki, Fraser Jamieson on piano, Ewan Booth on Saxophone, and Zoe
Galbraith on Clarsach. Members of St. Mungo's congregation supported
visitors from across Penicuik and beyond eager to hear these young people entertain them. They were not to be disappointed.
Dave
Anderson of Penicuik Rotary acted as master of ceremonies, introducing
the young musicians and telling us a bit of their backgrounds. all the
performers were pupils of Penicuik High School.
Fraser
Jamieson started us off playing 'Reverie' (a dreamy character) by
Claude Debussy, followed by Chopin's 'Prelude in D-flat Major Opus 28
No 15' "Raindrop". This is the longest of 24
Chopin preludes, noted for its repeating A-flat, which appears
throughout the piece and sounds like raindrops to many listeners.
Fraser returned to play a second set later in the evening choosing
Bach's Prelude BMV 998, and his own composition 'Melancholy in F Minor'
 Fraser
is a very versatile musician who was inspired by the rock band Muse at
the age of 11. He started playing electric guitar before moving on to
piano at 14 when he discovered classical piano music first learning
Beethoven’s “Fur Elise”.
With friends,
Fraser formed a rock band called “Liquid State” for which
he wrote some original material. The band was successful locally
including gigs at Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire as well as opening
at Pen Fest last year. A name change to “Clockwire” brought
about a double single release followed by headlining at
Edinburgh’s Electric Circus.
During his time at Penicuik
High School Fraser was cast in various productions including performing
in the “Queen” musical, and has also played guitar with the
Midlothian Rock Band at the Usher Hall. He performed piano in the
Rotary Young Musician Competition progressing to the area final. He is
now studying popular music at Edinburgh College with guitar as his main
instrument hoping to progress to composing for film and TV.
We had to pay particular attention to the final piece of Fraser’s second set which was his own composition.
 Following
Fraser was our Tenor singer for the evening, Marcus Swietlicki. His
first of three sets featured Peter Warlock's 'Captain Fancy', Roger
Quilter 'Go, Lovely Rose', and Francesca Paolo Tosti 'La Serenata',
sung in Italian.
The
second set saw Marcus sing Handel's 'Comfort Ye & Ev'ry
Valley', and Schubert 'Der Neugierige', both sung in German
Music
from the shows formed his final set , Lerner & Lowe 'On the
Street Where You Live', Andrew Lloyd Weber ' Close Every Door',
finishing with Boublil & Schonberg 'Bring Him Home', All sung in
English..
Marcus
is 17 years old and a student at Penicuik High School. He began singing
with the National Boys Choir at 11 years old then had lessons with
mezzo soprano Kathleen McKellar Ferguson in 2013. In 2014 he performed a
tenor solo in Perth Concert Hall accompanied by the National Boys Choir
and that year was also chosen to take part in a masterclass at Scottish
Opera Connect with soprano Judith Howard.
In 2016 Marcus
gained a place in the tenor section of the National Youth Choir of
Scotland and was recently awarded first place at the Glasgow Music
Festival Oratorio under 18 Class. He took part in the Rotary Young
Musician this year winning the Scottish District and the Regional
competitions then attaining third place in the National finals.
Marcus will be auditioning for music college later in the year hoping to become a professional classical singer.
A change of pace and instrument from Zoe Galbraith on Clarsach.
 18
year old Zoe is a student at Penicuik High School. She played
Ailie Robertson 'Sands of Hosta', Deborah Henson-Conant 'Natanliana', and James Scott Skinner 'Diel Among the Tailors'.
on the Clarsach which she has played since P6.
She also
plays the Ukulele which she took up in S2, and started learning piano a
year and a half ago. Her ambition is to gain access to the
Conservatoire and then to become a music teacher.
We had enjoyed
string instruments and singing, now it was the turn of Woodwind in
the the shape of Saxophonist Ewan Booth. The saxophone was
Invented in 1840 by Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax, who wanted to create a group of instruments that
would be the most powerful and vocal of the woodwinds, and the most
adaptive of the brass instruments.
Ewan
started playing the saxophone in P7 at Cornbank Primary School and
is now in S4 at Penicuik High School where he plays an active role in
the school’s music activities, performing in wind and jazz bands.
Ewan has recently started taking lessons from Sue MacKenzie, one of
Scotland's leading contemporary saxophonists and leader and founder of
the Scottish Saxophone Ensemble.
 For his presentation Ewan chose
Bach's
'Sinfonia from Cantata No 156, followed by Julius Fucik 'Entry of the
Gladiators', finishing with that all time favourite 'Take 5' made
famous in 1959 by Dave Brubeck Quartet, which became, and still is the biggest-selling jazz single ever.
Music
is a very important part of the Booth family’s life with
Ewan’s mother a cellist and his brother a keen violinist. Ewan
loves music which he is studying at school but his ambition is to study
graphic design on leaving school.
By the end of the evening the
audience were in awe at the sheer breadth and depth of talent that is
on our doorstep in Penicuik. These young people will go far should they
progress their musical careers, and those that were there at this
concert will be able to say, 'I saw them first in the Rotary Classical
Youth Concert at St. Mungo's in Penicuik'
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