Something's Coming

It seems barely credible that just two months have elapsed since MYCO staged “Legally Blonde” at The Oxford Playhouse.  The summer concert is a more inclusive event, with the number of performers on stage doubling to around seventy.  The focus here was very much on the singing, and the short lead time meant that the dancing and movement, while accomplished, lacked the jaw-dropping precision of the Playhouse show.  The concert demonstrated, above all, the astonishing depth of talent in the Musical Youth Company of Oxford, as members  stepped up seamlessly to contribute to this wonderful evening’s entertainment.

The concert comprised over thirty medleys and individual songs, compered by two past members of the company.  There wasn’t a strong theme to bind the programme together, or even to justify the grouping of musical numbers, although the work of Stephen Sondheim featured prominently.  Indeed, the evening opened with the first of three Sondheim medleys, performed by the whole company.  MYCO includes an impressive number of tenors and basses,  inevitably they are outnumbered by the sopranos and altos, which was most apparent when the boys found themselves towards the back of the zonally amplified stage.  The opening medley also exemplified some other recurring themes: there was consistent precision in the rhythm and timing, notably in how long the final notes in phrases were sustained, and the diction was really strong – I hardly missed a word all evening.

It was reasonable to claim that there was something for everyone in the programme, albeit there was a leaning towards the more sophisticated songs with a strong emotional heft.    Everyone in the company is so talented, and deserves the opportunity to perform, which they all did providing an excellent evening's entertainment.

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