FROM the car horn-punctuated precision of the Muppet Show Theme confidently blasted out by the burgeoning brass group, to the final rousing bars of the concert band finale complete with solo bagpipe obbligato, there was an unfailingly impressive display of young musicianship from start to finish at the Peebles High School Spring Concert.

There was great variety too. The choir sang in perfect harmony in a programme ranging from recent pop classics with Christina Perri’s Jar of Hearts to the soulful a cappella of Down to the River to Pray. There was a consistency of excellence across the wide range of ensembles heard.

The guitar group played with sparkling articulation as usual in Tijuana Taxi and the newly restored string orchestra, consisting mainly of junior players, performed with mature confidence, energy and accuracy in Firework, an arrangement of the Katy Perry song.

The demands of playing in a smaller group were immaculately met by the flute group and the complicated jazz polyphony of Birdland courageously accomplished by the saxophone quartet.

Towards the end of the night, the senior students, for whom this was their last concert, presented a swansong performance of their own devising in a superior rendition of songs from the film Brave. Many of them have made invaluable contributions over the years as well as in the ensembles heard in this concert.

Former students contributed to performances too: Amanda Lindley played the baritone saxophone in the quartet; Douglas Couchman bolstered the brass section on trumpet in the brass group, orchestra, jazz group and concert band and Ellen Smith arranged the Music from Doctor Who for the Orchestra.

Notable soloists were Eilidh Davidson on cornet, playing the syncopated solo in the brass group’s Song of the Volga Boatmen and Fraser Walker on violin, fronting the senior group with his commanding fiddle playing and taking a lyrical solo in the Sibelian Epic played by the orchestra.

In the second half an accordion duo (Edie Goodwin and Rose Cursiter) crowned the ceilidh band’s performance of Caledonia and a set of jigs and this was immediately followed by the barnstorming virtuosity of the jazz group who blasted out American Patrol and Nou’s Blue.

With Alexa Smith providing the bagpipe solo in the final concert band number, Tilly’s Tune, another excellent evening of precocious performing from the High School came to a triumphant conclusion.