The Shiplake Community was treated to a House Singing Competition with a twist last Wednesday.
For the first time ever this eagerly anticipated event was held online. Usually the school comes together firstly in the lecture theatre for the solo round and then in the Sports Hall for the ensemble and whole house rounds, with all three rounds conducted in front of a panel of judges.
Mr Curran, Director of Music knew that he needed to do something that captivated pupils' imagination and encourage audience participation, and so the Shiplake Masked Singer Competition was born.
Loosely based on the popular TV show, The Masked Singer, each House put forward a singer whose identity was disguised throughout the duration of their performance. The viewers at home then took part in a live poll to guess the singer from a range of names. The final singer was our mystery teacher masked singer.
The whole event was compered by Joint Heads of College, James Burgess and Trixie May who gave an engaging and entertaining running commentary throughout.
In between each performance were some very special guest performances from Mrs 'Madonna' Magee, Mr 'Commitments' Ralph, Mr 'Simple Minds' Milburn, Milo 'Paolo Nutini' Griffiths and Matt Waring with a brilliant interlude on two instruments.
Singers Unmasked
At the Whole School Assembly this morning the identities of the masked singers were revealed:
- Everett - Henry Kunzig who sung Where Did I Go Wrong, I Lost a Friend, by The Fray. The majority of people guessed this correctly with 79 votes for Henry.
- Orchard - Monty Greenaway who sung Never Gonna Give You Up, by Rick Astley. The audience at home were nearly unanimous with 96 votes for Monty.
- Skipwith - J Lucking who sung I Can't Fight This Feeling, by Bastille. This was a tricky one to guess with votes split nearly equally between the winner and Lucas Ferrer de Arriba.
- Burr - D Gemmell who sung Watermelon Sugar, by Harry Styles. The audience at home were completely fooled with this one as the majority of voters thought it was Head of Lower School and Burr House pupil, Seb Crehan-Mills!
- Welsh - Isobel Blake Hurworth who sung Drivers License by Olivia Rodrigo. Isobel was identified correctly by the majority of voters with 99 voters correctly identifying her as the dulcet tones behind the mask.
Our mystery masked teacher singer, was Miss Jones who sung an amazing rendition of West End favourite Don't Rain On My Parade from musical Funny Girl.
The Winning House
Following careful scrutiny of the votes placed, based on which House the voter was representing and whether they voted correctly, Mr Curran announced the winning House of this year's Inter-House Singing Competition.
5th = Everett
4th = Orchard
3rd = Skipwith
2nd = Burr
1st = Welsh
Well done to all the performers and congratulations to Welsh House which had the most correct guesses per voter. They retain the House Singing title for another year!
Mr Curran, said: "Our House Singing Competition is a real highlight of the year so we knew we had to do something really special if we were to do it online.
"Hot on the heels of Saturday night show The Masked Singer, The Shiplake Masked Singing Competition was born, with real time audience participation to guess who was behind the masks.
"It was great fun seeing all the votes coming in and Heads of College, James and Trixie's running commentary throughout was brilliant. I would like to extend my thanks to them for doing a superb job in keeping us all entertained.
"I would also like to extend a sincere thank you to all of the masked singers who represented their houses so well, and our mystery teacher, Miss Jones, for keeping us on our toes.
"Last, and by no means least, a big thank you to Mrs Green for masterfully pulling all of the technical elements and live polling together and being at the controls during the event."
