The Armed Man

The Armed Man – A Mass for Peace, Royal Albert Hall

On Sunday 28^th September, following several months of intensive rehearsals, a group of 37 Prince Henry’s students (including some recent past students), as well as Mr Bullas, Miss Heywood and Mr Parker participated in a wonderful performance of Karl Jenkin’s “The Armed Man – A Mass for Peace” which was staged at the Royal Albert Hall in London, as part of the commemoration of the outbreak of World War One.  Organised by Sing UK, the performance featured The Philharmonia Orchestra together with a massed choir of 600 young vocalists drawn from the UK, Germany, Belgium and France.

As if to reinforce the commemoration theme of the day, several of the students also had an unplanned but memorable encounter with two Chelsea Pensioners outside the Royal Albert Hall.

Some photos from the final rehearsals and the event itself are shown below. 

After the event, Anne Renshaw of Sing UK sent the following message:

“What a great day, what a fantastic performance, what genuine warmth and co-operation there was between countries, regions, schools and choirs! It was one of those rare occasions when all the component parts, effort and contribution, that have gone into something come together in a truly unique and wonderful way. All those who were there in the audience knew they were witnessing something very special indeed. We have been asked repeatedly about whether a recording was made – the answer is unfortunately not. The costs of doing this when professional musicians are involved are completely prohibitive, either for a commercial or non-commercial recording – so you will just have to hold it in the memory for ever!

There has been some great feedback coming in from all quarters – orchestra, choirs/schools, audience, and partners. You might like to know that our principal partner described it as “one of The Highlights of my life”.

Here is a link to photos from the day, now all in a Flickr account. Due to the RAH’s own strict rules on photography, the photographer was limited to a fixed position at the back of the Hall during the performance and was only allowed to take photographs during applause (which of course there wasn’t during The Armed Man!). Hence there are more photos taken during rehearsals when he had greater access and freedom to move about.”

https://www.flickr.com/photos/singuk/