Restarting Music Ensembles

Choirs and music ensembles have always played a huge role in children’s life at King’s St Alban’s. All our pupils sing in at least one choir and many enjoy our weekly Orchestra, String Group, Guitar Group and Wind Band rehearsals.

The restrictions of lockdown meant that weekly instrumental lessons moved to an online format, alongside the rest of the curriculum. While this enabled many of our young musicians to continue to progress and enjoy their instruments, we have all missed the joy of live music making with others!

It has been wonderful to reform our groups this term. Working within the Government’s Covid-19 restrictions, we have been able to hold a full range of activities this week. Full Orchestra has become a string orchestra, in order to reduce numbers and maintain social distancing, but all other groups have been able to operate more or less normally.

The children have all clearly relished the opportunity to play with others once again and all the groups have all made an excellent start on this term’s repertoire. Our choirs are operating on a rota basis at present, but again it was clear that everyone enjoyed the chance to sing together. Even our school-wide hymn practice has been able to make a reappearance, thanks to the wonders of technology!

The mental health benefits of music making has been well documented and in these uncertain times, it seems particularly important that we continue to enjoy our music programme, which makes up part of our vast curriculum at the school.