Arts

ST ANDREWS MUSIC HITS THE HIGH NOTES

Primary Music Festival

On Tuesday 20 August we held our Primary Music Festival which was, once again, adjudicated by Noel Jones, a world-famous composer in the Salvation Army. Over 120 students gave individual performances on a range of instruments, and for the first time this year we featured some duets. Mr Jones was very impressed by our students, both in terms of their performing abilities and their resilience in overcoming their nerves! It was wonderful to see the range of talent that we have at St Andrews and we look forward to seeing these young musicians develop further over the coming years. I would like to thank the teachers who brought their classes to be an audience and support our performers, and our Year 5 and 6 student helpers who did a wonderful job welcoming parents and assisting with keeping the day running smoothly.

MaxiVox Visit to Donvale Presbyterian Church Seniors Lunch

On Thursday 22 August our Year 4 -6 Choir, MaxiVox, attended Donvale Presbyterian Church's Seniors Lunch. They had prepared a performance programme of 8 songs, a solo item, and Biblical reflection given by Andrew Beovich in Year 6. In spite of being very nervous they acquitted themselves amazingly well and the seniors of Donvale were delighted with their varied programme of contemporary and worship songs. We particularly enjoyed having dessert and a chat with them after the performance. Mr Alan Wright, the organiser, sent us a lovely email the following day:

"On behalf of the Seniors at Donvale, I want to pass on our sincere thanks to the students for the wonderful presentation yesterday.  There were so many good comments about the performance by the children.  Pass on our congratulations to them when you next see them together."

It is wonderful to see our students put themselves outside their comfort zone to serve with their God-given gifts and talents, and take pride in representing their school in the wider community.

Ensembles Extravaganza

On Monday 9th September we held our second and final Ensembles Extravaganza for the year. All the College ensembles performed a selection of repertoire ranging from Mozart's Overture to the Magic Flute to Duke Ellington's Come Sunday. Our youngest ensemble, MiniVox, with students in Years 2 - 4 performed their items from the Monash Youth Music Festival, and our Senior Vocal Ensembles dazzled us with a diverse range of styles including 80s pop and Ed Sheeran. Jazz Band and Concert Band made excellent use of our newly acquired baritone saxophone, purchased after the successful fundraiser from the previous concert. We are so excited by the growth of our extra-curricular music programme. Each concert demonstrated the amazing progress the students have made and it is wonderful to have such a supportive audience of parents and staff. We would like to thank again our tutors and teaching staff who supported the event in a range of capacities - we could not put these evenings on without this support and it is very much appreciated. We look forward to seeing all staff, students and parents at the Ensembles Concerts in 2020!

COLLEGE MUSIC INFORMATION NIGHT

We will be having a Music Information Night on Monday 14 October at 7pm detailing all aspects of the music programme at the College, including the Concert Band Scholarship Programme for students in Years 3 - 6 (2020). This session will be highly beneficial to any families new to our community considering enrolling their child in an instrumental ensemble, vocal group or instrumental tuition, or current families wishing to enrol for the first time. We will explain the enrolment processes, financial arrangements and detail what you can expect from our instrumental teachers. 

We look forward to meeting you on this evening should you wish to attend, and gratefully acknowledge the support given to our music programme by our parent community.

MOST VALUABLE  PLAYERS (MVPs)

At our recent Ensembles Concert we took the opportunity to acknowledge some of the Most Valuable Players (MVPs) in our primary school music ensembles. These students have been recognised as demonstrating our school values through the way they participate in our extra-curricular music activities as follows:

Faithfully honouring commitments - turning up on time to rehearsals, coming every week,

Devoted to growth - making the most of rehearsal time by getting their instrument, stand, chair and music organised, practising their part at home, being focussed on the rehearsal and not wasting time being chatty with their friends, being involved in more than one ensemble

Servant heart - helping to set up and pack away at rehearsals, looking after younger students, being prepared to do something different for the good of the team.

The following students were selected:

Abygail Xiao Year 3

Anani Ho Year 3

Angela He Year 3

Gabriel Liu Year 3

Sheanne Hii Year 3

Elysha Letten Year 3

Sera Oktanio Year 4

Annabelle Tay Year 4

Deanna Hu Year 4

Chloe Gung Year 5

Annika Li Year 5

Leah Chong Year 5

Roshan Firme Year 5

Evan Widjaja Year 5

Joshua Liu Year 5

Thomas Tobing Year 6

Daniel Elias Year 6

We love the fact that so many of our students are demonstrating our College values through their God-given musical gifts and talents, and are appreciative of the support that our parents give to the musical life of the school.

SEWING GIFTS FOR PREP BUDDIES

The artworks produced by our very talented Middle School Artists is simply amazing! Year 6s have almost finished sewing their Prep Buddy gifts that are to encourage them to keep growing more like Jesus. Year 7s have also finished off their ModRoc plaster Roman Artifacts. An exhibition will be set up bringing together learning from Humanities, English and Visual Art! Year 8 have clay shoes in the Kiln and are waiting to paint them before putting together an exhibition of work that is all about walking with integrity, in the footsteps of a mentor. Each student chose a mentor who has modelled integrity, work ethic, kindness and faith.

Our Bible verse for the year reminds us that ‘if we walk in Him we will never walk in darkness’, and many students have chosen Jesus as their mentor – a great choice.  All Year 7 and 8 students have embarked on their Major work for the year – a Passion Project! Please ask them about it at home. As they seek to become Faithfully Devoted Servants of Christ, our students are discovering what it means to give things a go when they are challenging, overcome frustrations and to encourage and be encouraged by others. I am always proud of them!

Keep Creating!

Marina Heading