Co-ordinator: C J D Hyde GRNCM
Outline of work
Music lessons are included in the curriculum for all years. Class music, which consists of two thirty-five minute sessions a week, is largely practically based and is comprised of singing, class percussion, recorders and, in the last two years, keyboard work. The whole school sings with great gusto at morning Assembly.
There are instrumental and vocal societies which the boys are encouraged to join. Instrumental tuition, given by fourteen peripatetic teachers, is available to all on the main orchestral instruments of the string, bass, woodwind and percussion families, and also on piano, guitar and voice. Many of the peripatetic teachers are actively involved in running societies, including the orchestra, the choir, the string ensemble, percussion group and the wind ensemble.
During the school year there are several opportunities for the boys to perform to an audience. In December the Christmas Concert takes place in the Senior School Assembly Hall and all the boys participate, as do all the vocal and orchestral groups. In the Spring Term the boys prepare form concerts which we put on for an invited audience of parents and family members, and at the end of the term there is, once again, a public concert. During the Spring Term, Junior and Senior boys also perform at the Music Open Evening which offers the chance for parents to hear the progress of the boys and to talk to peripatetic teachers. The Summer Term sees the final musical event of the year, the House Music Competition, where soloists compete in six different categories for the coveted House Music Trophy.
Resources
We have a music room for class teaching and four individual music rooms. We have many different instruments for class lessons and also the opportunity to use the facilities in the Senior School.