Orchestral Workshop Wonder!

On Tuesday 18th March, 58 pupils from King’s Hawford, King’s St. Alban’s and the Senior School spent the day at King’s participating in the annual Orchestral Workshop for musicians in Years 4 to 9. 

In total, 58 children from across the three schools were involved, playing a wide range of repertoire. The aim of the Orchestral Workshop was to learn music from scratch in various groupings: Workshop Orchestra, Workshop Brass, Wind Band and String Orchestra. The day closed with an informal concert to showcase what we had achieved.

The concert opened strongly with Brass Group performing a famous march – ‘The Toreador’s Song’ from Bizet’s opera, ‘Carmen’. The tune featured the trumpets and French horns ably supported by the lower brass trombones and euphonium. This was followed by orchestral pieces, the first in traditional Scottish style, ‘Mairi’s Wedding’, along with the hymn-like ‘St Anthony Chorale’.

String Orchestra jazzed things up with ‘Little Brown Jug’ and to maintain the mood, Orchestra followed with another energetic and rhythmic piece, ‘Caribbean Carnival’. Wind Band tackled an ambitious piece called ‘Liberty Bell’, learning to follow a complicated musical structure with this well-known tune.

The concert was punctuated by solos from pupils from across the three schools.

Olivia G from Hawford (violin), George P from St. Alban’s (trumpet), and Jack T (bassoon), Henry K (harp), Delphine P (piano) and Ed S (clarinet) from the Senior School all entertained the enthusiastic audience with a wide range of pieces.

Finally, Orchestra brought the concert to a close with two exciting pieces; the traditional Jamaican melody ‘Yellow Bird’, and a great fun spooky piece called ‘Ghost Ride’, complete with all the Orchestra players embellishing it with spooky vocal sounds and screams!

This exhilarating day is a wonderful opportunity for children to gain lots of ensemble playing experience, to learn music from scratch, to improve sight-reading skills and follow musical direction whilst having great fun learning new repertoire and making new friends. Some children did more playing in one day than they might normally do in a fortnight!

We are very grateful to Mr Gunter for organising the whole day, and to Mrs Kilbey and Mrs Hughes for running their parts of the workshop. We are already looking forward to next year!