Orchestral Workshop Highlights

On Tuesday 18th March, 14 children from King’s Hawford spent the day at big King’s participating in the foundation-wide workshop for musicians in years 4 to 9, of grade 2-8 standard.

Across the three schools there were more than 60 children involved playing a wide range of repertoire. The aim of the day was to put on a concert from scratch, showcasing the combined schools’ Orchestra, and smaller Brass Group, Wind Band and String Orchestra that had formed during the day.

The concert opened strongly with a 12-player Brass Group performing a famous march – ‘The Torreador’s Song’ from Bizet’s opera, ‘Carmen’. The tune featured in the trumpets and French horns ably supported by the lower brass trombones and euphonium. This was followed by a couple of orchestral pieces – a traditional Scottish piece ‘Mairi’s Wedding’ and the hymn-like ‘St Anthony Chorale’. There were solos from a child in each of the foundation schools, and Olivia G (y6) featured from Hawford.  She gave an excellent and exciting violin performance of ‘Dance Espagnole’ by Benoni Lagye ‘ String Group jazzed things up with ‘Little Brown Jug’ and to maintain the mood, Orchestra followed with another energetic and rhythmic piece ‘Caribbean Carnival’

The large Wind Band tackled an ambitious piece called ‘Liberty Bell’, learning to follow a complicated musical structure with this well-known tune. Finally,  orchestra brought the concert to a close with two exciting pieces: the traditional Jamaican melody ‘Yellowbird’, 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 would normally, perhaps, do in a fortnight! we are very grateful to Mr Gunter for organising the whole day, and to Mrs Kilby and Mrs Hughes for running their parts of the workshop. We are already looking forward to next year!