Royal College Event Raises £30,000

The Royal College of Music in Kensington provided a beautiful venue for our special Black Tie event on Thursday 15^th April, which raised a fantastic £30,000.

The evening attracted more than 100 supporters including the High Sheriff of Kent and proceedings began with entertainment from talented pianists; Konstantin Lapshin and Daniil Sayamov, who performed pieces by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Konstantin graduated from the Royal College of Music in 2009 with distinction in a Masters degree, receiving the highest RCM award, the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Rose Bowl. In 2009, Daniil won a full scholarship to enter the postgraduate course of the RCM and has performed all over the world.

After dinner, The Caldecott School Choir, which began in January, performed their own special medley of R Kelly’s ‘I believe I can fly’, conducted by the school’s music teacher, Andy Croft. Guests were blown away by the moving performance, with vocals and percussion provided by the children who attend Caldecott, with support on stage from their carers. Following the performance one of the children read a poem entitled ‘Finding my Mum’, which he had written from his own personal experience.

Former director of Christie’s, auctioneer Terence Rodrigues, went on to lead an exciting auction, with lots including seven nights in the Bahamas, a portrait sitting with June Mendoza, two nights at the Four Seasons in Florence and tickets for the 2010 Open Championship at St Andrews, some of which sold for as much as £6,500.

After the auction guests enjoyed a special performance from upcoming singer-songwriter James Carrington, whose song ‘Ache’ was featured in the US television series ‘Smallville’ in 2006. To conclude the evening, ‘Triumph Brass’ who are a brass quintet made up of students from The Royal College of Music, played a lively set of songs and received a well deserved encore from the guests. The group have previously played with bands such as The Hoosiers, Brass Monkeys and Take That.

Head of Fundraising, Sam Scott said: “The evening went really well and the guests truly enjoyed their School Dinner experience. We had some amazing musical performances from a group of extremely talented people. The children were thrilled to be able to perform in front of such a large audience and were delighted by the response. We would like to thank everyone who made this evening so special and helped us to raise an astounding £30,000 for the charity”.