the sound of music

Jeremy de Korte 

Upper Strings Teacher

On May 22,  a group of six String Instrumental Music students, Mrs Evans and myself travelled across Melbourne to  attend the annual 2019 StringFest event. 

Just over 50 students from eight different state secondary schools attended and they were quickly formed into a large orchestra.  The Conductor was the very entertaining Nathan Scerri, Head of Strings at Penleigh Essendon Grammar. Nathan kept up a lively banter with students all day while reinforcing string-playing technique, musicianship and theory.  It was great to see our students settle into this experience and socialise with those from other schools. 

The orchestra completed nearly 4 hours of playing throughout the day with rehearsals in the morning and recordings in the afternoon and were able to present two works at a very competent standard. 

At the end of the day this group travelled back to Brunswick, tired but enthused and from talking to them it was clear that they had enjoyed the experience.  Certainly, from my perspective, it was great to have the opportunity to take the BSC team to this event and for the students to have a different type of musical experience. 

Click on the photos here to enlarge them.

Farai Marsh

Year 7

I was sort of scared to go to StringFest at first as I hadn’t done anything like it before, but it ended up being a great experience. It was really fun to be in a big group of people playing music and I would recommend it to any string players. Our conductor was extremely entertaining and kept us all on our toes! StringFest was also very tiring, but in a good way. On the train home I was exhausted - but I also felt very accomplished.

Madeleine Horner

Year 10

Attending StringFest was a great opportunity for the string ensemble.  We were able to play in a bigger group of students, so the sound we produced was huge!  It was also interesting to meet students from different schools with a shared interest in music.  As a group, we performed and recorded 2 pieces - Aeolius and Sahara Crossing.  It was exciting to hear the pieces come together throughout the rehearsals and everyone was really happy with the end result.  Hopefully, StringFest has given us valuable performing experience for the upcoming BSC Chamber Concert