Mr Atkins (Music Teacher)
Music is an inherently social pursuit, and over its history has been used time and again to create or reinforce communities: from persecuted Catholics meeting in secret to share the coded masses of Byrd and Tallis to Vera Lynn, unifying the nation’s hearts and minds in its hour of greatest darkness. So how do we keep this essential art form alive when it involves the very thing we’re supposed to avoid? Fortunately, Music is also fundamentally inventive – anyone trying to wrap their heads around the complex waveforms involved in wind and brass instruments will have new-found respect for Adolph Sax’s extraordinary creations – and its protagonists haven’t hesitated in seizing the opportunity to find new ways of practising their passion.
The knock-out blow came just a couple of hours before our planned Spring Concert, when the Prime Minister’s public announcement rendered it impossible. Within days Mr Atkins had already started work on his first virtual performance: a beautiful arrangement of a piece which should have been performed at his Grandfather’s funeral – sadly also cancelled – featuring several members of the BGS community.
Since then, Mr Keating-Roberts, Mr Atkins, Mrs McKinnell and a number of our students have all put together performances of themselves, while Bel Canto and the Senior String Quartet have also kept busy. Within the community we’ve had a virtual Lunch Club and our students, alumnae and staff have found their skills and expertise in great demand further afield, having been approached by and involved with productions from: St. Paul’s Church Choir; local choirs Cantamus and The Eagle Choir; Rock and Blues band Albany Down; Kempston Concert Band; and the newly-formed international Self-Isolation Choir of over 5,000 members. To ensure we remain at the cutting edge of developments our staff have also been keeping abreast of latest innovations by conversing regularly with other virtual recording pioneers such as The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, The Rodolfus Foundation and Piraxa Studios.
And then, of course, there was That Video. From the outset, the vision was to create something to celebrate the great range and diversity of fabulous musicians throughout our school community, and to bring us together to remind ourselves that while we head further into the unknown we do so with one another. With around 700 individual contributions, our thoughts go particularly to those students and staff leaving our community for whom we hoped to create a sense of the community being as one before they head to their next ventures. In Bill Withers’ so-apt opening lyrics, ‘Sometimes in our lives we all have pain, we all have sorrow: but, if we are wise, we know that there’s always tomorrow.’ Here’s to tomorrow, and all the inventive ways we can find to keep making Music social!
