On the evening of Saturday 21st April, 100 Young Voices celebrated the opening of the Royal Marine Heritage Trails (Deal and Walmer ) with a music concert at St George’s Church, Deal, organised by Mrs Joy Spencer on behalf of The Deal Learning Alliance and in conjunction with Bill Butler and Terry Crawford. The Deal Learning Alliance local school choirs were from: Deal Parochial, The Downs, Kingsdown and Ringwould, Northbourne Primary, Sandown and Warden House, and the choirs were accompanied by a band of local talented musicians.

The musical programme consisted mainly of original musical compositions. The audience was taken away by Seasongs, which was a song cycle consisting of four very different interactions with the sea, reflected through a particular time of the day and through human relationships. These were linked together by the continuous spying presence of the common seagull which is musically depicted by the oboe. Seasongs was the result of a collaborative creative project in the Autumn of 2013 involving all the Deal Primary School Choirs. John Wakeman, a member of Deal Writers and Joy Spencer, Music Teacher and Composer.

Beyond the Horizon was performed on the descant recorder by Jonny Heaver, who currently attends Dover College. Jonny said, “My composition was inspired by the beautiful seaside town where I live, where I imagined the power of the sea and its differing moods; sometimes stormy and uncontrollable and other times calm and tranquil, leading me to question what lies beyond the horizon”.

Uplifted was performed on the trumpet by Ellie Williams, who is studying for her A Levels  at Sir Roger Manwood’s School. Ellie said, “I wrote this piece as part of my GCSE coursework, with the theme of flying. Although I’m not a big fan of birds, I’ve always liked the idea of flying myself”!