Dame Jane Glover hailed an uplifting and joyful concert as Haberdashers’ Monmouth School pupils filled Hereford Cathedral with music and energy.
Haberdashers’ Monmouth School welcomed distinguished alumna and Patron of Performing Arts, Dame Jane Glover, to Hereford Cathedral last week, as pupils delivered a spectacular Choral and Orchestral Concert in one of the country’s most historic venues.
The concert, held on Wednesday 29th April, brought together musicians from across the school alongside a professional orchestra, filling the cathedral with sound, colour and joyful energy. Highlights included Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, a powerful performance of Sibelius’s Finlandia, and Malcolm Arnold’s The Padstow Lifeboat, complete with playful foghorns, provided to the audience on their arrival, echoing beneath the cathedral’s ancient arches.
The evening concluded with a vibrant performance of Vivaldi’s Gloria, sung by the Chapel Choir and all of Year 7, with solo contributions from pupils Claire C and Elin P. The scale of the performance and the confidence of the young musicians drew warm praise from the audience.
Among those in attendance was Dame Jane Glover, one of the UK’s most respected conductors and a former pupil of the school. Reflecting on the evening, she said:
“The Haberdashers’ Monmouth School concert in Hereford Cathedral on Wednesday evening was an event of great delight. To see young people working together on superb music in such glorious surroundings was uplifting. They had obviously all prepared well, and were reaping the rewards of their labours. But they were clearly having a great deal of fun too, as were we in the audience.”
She also praised the leadership behind the concert, adding her congratulations “especially to Mr Harris for devising it, for pulling it all together with such skill, and for delivering it with such humour”.
The concert marked another milestone in the school’s thriving performing arts programme, offering pupils the rare opportunity to perform large‑scale repertoire in a cathedral setting, and to do so in front of an audience that included one of Britain’s leading figures in classical music.
