A crowd huddled in the cold around the Kingswood College Chapel on Wednesday 11 June as a small group of musicians attempted to help break a large record – the Guinness World Record for the Largest Busk at Multiple Venues.
A crowd huddled in the cold around the Kingswood College Chapel on Wednesday 11 June as a small group of musicians attempted to help break a large record – the Guinness World Record for the Largest Busk at Multiple Venues.
As part of the Musequality World Busk project, 25 pupils making up the Kingswood College Concert Band took part in an animated performance which started at 6.50pm and ended at 7.10pm in order to synchronise their performance with other busking groups from all over the world.
This was an attempt to break the previous record of a worldwide busk taking place in 10 different locations, with at least 25 buskers at each location, busking simultaneously for at least five minutes. The starting time was 18h00 GMT, which was 7pm here.
Director of Music at Kingswood College, Stephen Holder explained that they their concert band first joined the worldwide busking project about four years ago, busking to raise funds for local charities. This year’s charity collection went to the Lebone Centre and was especially memorable for the group, as they were potentially breaking a world record too.
“Yes everyone was very excited to perform tonight and even though we were a little nervous about sticking to the exact time, I think everyone performed very well and had a lot of fun,” said Holder after the performance.
The band, containing an electric bass, electric cello, accompanying drums, and a sizeable brass section performed a series of songs ranging from Coldplay to familiar numbers from well-known Disney movies such as the Lion King, and ended the performance off with the South African national anthem, to which the crowd happily added vocals.
“Ending off with the national anthem was great, because a lot of the groups in the World Busk Project come from schools based in South Africa who will also be ending off with our anthem so it was an act of solidarity too” said Holder.
The performance was filmed and independent observers, Rick van Heerden from the DSG Music School and Rhodes University Dean of Law Jonathan Campbell signed documentation to record the band's participation in the record attempt.
Musequality aims to support the development of music projects for disadvantaged children in the developing world.
