A group of 12 pupils from the top two years (percussionists, singers, guitarists and film music fanatics) attended a fabulous concert in Symphony Hall, Birmingham on the evening of Friday 12th October entitled ‘Music to Spy for’. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Carl Davis (the famous film and ballet composer) and he was joined by vocalists Mary Carewe and Simon Bowman.

As you can guess from the title of the concert, we listened to thrilling performances of music from all the ‘Bond’ movies (‘From Russia with Love’, ‘Goldfinger’, ‘Living Daylights’, ‘Moonraker’, Casino Royale to name but a few) and each piece was prefaced by a short and helpful introduction from Carl Davies. It was really good to see the orchestra play these pieces, to be able to begin to understand how the music fits to the film and how certain sounds are made for various ‘special’ effects.

There were many highlights to the evening, but the one that got the biggest ovation was, of course, the main ‘James Bond Theme’ that was written by Monty Norman for the very first film and has become synonymous with the name ‘James Bond’.

MJHS
13/x/07