Every student at LSG Bryanston is offered the opportunity to play a solo in a lunchtime concert in the week. There are three concerts every day, held at 13:45 in Elder Hall, Robson Fisher and Edwin Evans – except Wednesday which is a shorter timetable.
Participation in a solo lunchtime concert is optional, but many students enjoy the opportunity to perform at the summer school in front of a supportive audience of students, parents and teachers. For violinists, violists and cellists, this is the only solo performance opportunity available at LSG Bryanston. (Pianists’ final concerts on Saturday are solo concerts.)
In order for the concert performance to be a positive experience, students’ intended solo piece must be a well-polished piece they can play very well – a review piece that is not the most recent piece they have learned.
Any piece may be chosen! If playing a piece from outside the Suzuki repertoire, and the piece is intended to be played with accompaniment, students must bring any piano accompaniment with them to the summer school.
Parents of students wishing to participate in a lunchtime concert are asked to upload a video of the student playing the intended solo piece, by 1 July. This is to give the LSG Bryanston team time to review the videos and to set students into a suitable concert order for each of the twelve concerts. Occasionally, given the demand for solo performances, it is necessary to add a further concert on Saturday.
The video must show:
- The student playing their piece from memory (the only exception to this is chamber music – sonata movements – not from the Suzuki repertoire)
- A performance with piano accompaniment, if the piece is normally performed with accompaniment
- If videos are received that show the student playing a piece unaccompanied that is normally played with accompaniment, or using the music rather than playing from memory, we place the students whose videos show accompanied, memorised performances into concerts first, and only if there is space remaining in the concerts place the students whose videos were missing accompaniment or memorisation)
- The student taking a bow at the start, announcing themselves with their name and their piece, playing the piece (with or without repeats, as they will perform it at Bryanston), and bowing again at the end
- A performance that is maximum 8 minutes in length including bows and announcement
When providing concert piece information and video link, please follow these guidelines:
- Upload videos to YouTube or Google Drive only (please do not use Vimeo
- Provide a succinct but complete name of the piece to identify it – catalogue numbers and keys may be left off for brevity
- Provide composer name as surname only (i.e. Beethoven rather than Ludwig van Beethoven)
- Indicate what instrument the student is playing for their solo piece, as many students play multiple instruments at Bryanston (this is so that the concert program lists them properly and to let the team arrange necessary rehearsals with an accompanist)
- Supply a complete link to the video, with no other text in the link field
- Provide an accurate timing of the video showing the time in hours, minutes and seconds. A performance that is 3 minutes, 50 minutes long would be entered as 00:03:50 and the hours digits will always be 00.
- For performer’s name: First name and surname are required, and if your child normally uses his or her middle name, include that as well