Over the last few years, our College, Boys’ School and Girls’ School have gathered their respective musical talents for a day of music exchange. This collective music practice gave our students across similar age group and ability the opportunity to collaborate and strengthen the quality and quantity of music making in the feeder ensembles.
The morning started with sectional practice. These smaller workshops provided our Woodwind, Brass and Percussion members focussed time to drill, tune and practice their instrument-specific fundamentals in an ensemble scenario.
The groups then came together and spend time rehearsing three pieces as a full Symphonic Band led by Mr Tom Chester and Mr Matt Baker, who work across three campuses as music tutors and directors. Teachers were on hand to support as our musicians perfected their repertoire.
The practice ended on a high with students displaying admirable spirit of determination and passion in delivering the successive pieces, with big smiles on their faces as they hit the final note in unison.
Year 11 Jina You, our Symphonic Band flautist shared her experience
On 9 June, students from our College Symphonic band hosted our fellow musicians from the Boys’ School and Girls’ School for a music exchange. With the band increasing in size to over 80 members, everyone had an opportunity to play. It was bigger, louder and better!
Throughout the day, our enlarged Symphonic Band for the day covered three pieces. The first was Timepiece by Randall D. Standridge, a composition the College Band had been working on. The second was a piece the Boys’ School had been rehearsing, Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson, Bruno Mars, Phillip Lawrence, Jeff Bhasker, Devon Gallaspy and Nicholaus Williams. The third piece, Air For Band by Frank Erickson, was a new piece that served as a sight-reading challenge for everyone.
As the day passed, we witnessed significant improvement in the quality of music. The great atmosphere encouraged out young musicians to play with confidence and to truly enjoy the sounds they were making.
Towards the end, the whole group was led to play the repertoire consecutively in a concert-like style. It was quite a challenge, but we did it! The exchange had helped each of us sharpen our musical skills.
As a treat for our hard work and perseverance, we were all happy to have a large serving of pizza for lunch.
We would like to thank the band directors Mr Tom Chester, Mr Matt Baker and Ms Mary Lin from the College, Ms Georgina Jarvis from the Boys’ School and Mr Seamus Ford from Girls’ School for supporting our musical journey and making this gathering an enjoyable and valuable learning experience for all of us.
