Mrs McKinnell (Deputy Director of Music)

On Friday 17th June we gathered in the Assembly Hall for our final Senior Informal Lunchtime Concert of this academic year.

There was a really varied programme featuring performances from students in Year 7 all the way up to the Upper Sixth. These included a band performing their own song, singers, pianists, saxophonists, violinists and clarinettists. It was particularly enjoyable to hear a violin solo from Sophie Watson, one of our Upper Sixth leavers, and a violin duet from Sophie and Eloise Cawood, another Upper Sixth leaver who came fresh from an A Level exam that morning. 

Many of the students that performed were in the middle of their final preparations for the upcoming Trinity/ABRSM instrumental/vocal exams, and were particularly glad to be able to perform in front of an audience made up of alumnae, parents, teachers and friends. It was lovely to also hear some unaccompanied music, particularly some short jazzy pieces by James Rae performed by our woodwind students.

As part of the year 9 curriculum this year, our students embarked on a unit called Song-writing for professionals. Isla Campbell and Amber Chapman wrote a song for piano and voices called It’s’ Complicated, which was then arranged by a group of Year 9 students to be performed by them as a band with voices. The students were lucky enough to benefit from use of the new sets of band equipment which were purchased through generous funding by The Association.  It is on this equipment that the five students in the band rehearsed and performed their arrangement of It’s Complicated as a finale to the concert, enthusiastically supported by their peers!