Music for Teachers

The sixty-piece orchestra performed a charity concert for Hope House children’s hospice this afternoon at Meole Brace School. A magnificent sum of £1000 was presented to support the music room at Hope House.

The concert programme, performed by senior players and staff from the County orchestras and band, included music from current and classic cinema and theatre scores.

Performers who would like to join us for the 2008/9 season programme should please contact me.

I was delighted to receive an invitation to see ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ performed this week by a very strong cast at Grove School, Market Drayton, since their version of ‘Summer Holiday’ last year had been a totally enjoyable experience.

I attended the first night performance on Wednesday and the score was definitely ‘
Croatia 3 – The Grove 10!’ A most enjoyable evening made much more so since the diction was very good enabling the audience to hear the delights of the lyrics and dialogue.

A strength of the production was a uniformly very capable cast – good vocal work was a strong feature and very good characterisations throughout – unlike in many performances in some schools where the dramatic character is dropped as soon as a song begins.

I would particularly like to draw attention to the excellent work of the three students who linked the whole plot together as the characters Ronette, Crystal and Chiffon – they were outstanding – good stage presence, excellent communication with the audience and fine vocals with good well-balance harmonies – well done, Harriet, Mel and Hope, a great strength of the production.

I enjoyed the work of Marcus Groom as Mr Mushnik, he had created a convincing character and supported it with very good vocals; Audrey was played with style and confidence by Daisy McKee and earned the audience sympathy with a well sustained presentation seeming, initially, to be the only element of normality in a bizarre situation; Jonnie Hardy was amazingly over the top, a necessity for the role of ‘The Dentist’, he clearly thoroughly enjoyed the part which was an amalgam (!) of a sort of cross between Elvis, The Fonz and Hannibal Lecter – delicious! … and an inspired revisit of the chest-hair joke – brilliant!

Amy, Ollie and Robbie in smaller support roles made an impact – these were without the use of microphones and this caused a slight problem of balance in the vocal numbers but not a major issue.

Seymour played by Jo was such a considered characterisation – hesitant, exhibiting such low self-esteem and embarrassment that you were sympathetic even when he commits murder! Jo has a good voice – in places I felt the score was pitched a little low for him but he was convincing in this black role and with an extremely strong cast the vocal ensemble set pieces worked a treat.

The technical difficulties of this show should not be underestimated. It seemed to me that much time had been invested in this aspect of the show and it was really effective – the work of the sound and lighting team was very good. Some fine work had been undertaken to achieve a good sound balance in the musical numbers between the band and the voices – this was excellent – there’s nothing worse than seeing a show when the sound system is poor – not in this case. Excellent work Gareth and Jordan. This was well supported by the stage crew, Ben and Alex were presented with what must have been some complex set changes – these were very slick and made for a professional presentation.

Audrey #2 was a delight in all its forms – congratulations to Geert, Lyn and Stew for bringing the beast to life with good timing and effective ‘lip sync’.

This is truly an ensemble piece and the school is fortunate in having a talented group who magnificently held the audience’s attention and were responsible for creating much humour and fun – well done to all.

I’d like to say how good it is to see schools continuing to present major theatrical presentations at a time when it is so easy to focus on things that are easier to quantify and assess. A round of applause is deserved by the senior team of the school for supporting this vital work – so much of this weeks presentation will be remembered as a key part of school-life and long after the SATs scores have disappeared into history.

Congratulations to the cast and their directors Ken Stirling and Sharon Wright for another great show.

I have made a career doing things that weren’t even invented when I graduated from high school 40 years ago. It will be the same for today’s graduates, only on a sharply accelerating timeline. Much of what I learned in the classroom is obsolete or, at best, only marginally useful. What has made a difference in my life has been the ability to learn as I go, to adapt to new ideas, to have the courage to take risks, and to feel confident I will be able to perform and successfully meet the challenges of new situations. These skills I learned through participation in band and drama. - Fred Behning retired from IBM Corporation after a 32-year career that included assignments in systems engineering, product development, management, and customer technology briefings, and is still an IBM consultant. A life-long musician, Fred plays oboe and English horn in the Williamson County Symphony Orchestra and the Austin Symphonic Band.

This extract has been reproduced from the website of an American Music Association - The National Association for Music Education

I attended an end of year concert on June 22nd, for the seven primary schools who are taking part in the shole class violin tuition through the Shropshire Music Service.  It was a magnificent event with over 150 students showing what progress thet had made - they performed with enthusiasm and style to a full house at the Shrewsbury Music Hall.

This has been a very successful initiative and has been developed as a scheme for woodwind and brass as well in other primary schools in Shropshire.  Further details from the Shropshire Music Service.

The BBC is looking for young classical musicians with star quality to take part in a brand new TV competition.

Perhaps you might like to bring this to the attention of older music students.  For further information, please see this link.

There is interesting discussion on the Eurovision Song Contest (which I managed to miss very easily as I was playing in a concert at the time) - It’s easy to mock this event … and why not!

Who takes the event seriously - what do your students think about it? Perhaps an interesting unit of work for your students would be to recreate the typical Euro-sound - all entries to my email address please!

It is likely that the law will change on royalties paid to performers - see link.

Since it was unanticipated that rock musicians would like to a ripe old age problems have arisen for UK performers such as Cliff Richards and Paul McCartney - this should be of interest to all our young composers who might be planning on rockin’ into their 80’s!

Rock IT is a competition for school bands in the UK and Europe.
Registration is required via the rockit2007.org.uk website.

You can then submit a video of your band performing an original song.

If you get through the regional heats which will mostly be run via video conferencing you will be invited to the grand national final in Birmingham.

Please let us know of entries from your school by commenting on the blog.

Congratulations to Sue Anne Lim who won the Shropshire Concerto Competition last night in the thirtieth year of the competition.

The adjudicator, Mr John Stephens O.B.E. spoke about the high quality of all four young musicians but after four contrasting but engaging performances Sue Anne was presented with the BBC Radio Shropshire Trophy.

This year the four performances were:

Concerto for Violin (No.3) by Saint-Saens, performed by Sarah Greaney, Concerto for Oboe by Mozart, performed by Sarah Lee, Concerto for Horn (No.3) by Mozart, performed by Robin Kearney and Concerto for Piano (No.3) performed by Sue Ann Lim.

The young musicians were accompanied by the Shropshire Sinfonia, the orchestra of the staff and students of the Shropshire Music Service and their director was Mr Robert Wysome.

Stokesay Primary School presented an excellent concert this week which surely shows them to be in the forefront of muscial inclusion as they showcased a policy of opportunity for all.

With the support of colleagues from the Shropshire Music Service, Dot Atkins, David Glossop and Glenn Pollard, the staff and children of the school presented a programme listing over 90 children sharing with parents their progress over the last few terms in vocal and instrumental music.
Children sang and played trumpets, tormbones, cornets, recorders, flutes, clarinets and guitars showing off their achievements since beginning lessons in September 2006 or for some, 2005.

Musical materials had been carefully selected for the instrumentalists to show the progress made from beginners to more experienced ensemble work. The children who performed are just a representative sample of musicians in the school. While all the performers gave of their best and performed with enthusiasm, i must single out Daniel Meikle who sang and accompanied himself on the guitar. He showed great confidence and musical control as, alone, he faced the audience armed only with an acoustic guitar. Well done, Daniel.

The choir sang some excerpts from a musical they have prepared for an area musical collaboration. Again a wonderful opportunity for small rural schools to get together to provide opportunities for creativity for their children.

Congratualations to all children and staff.