Music Matters

Congratulations String Orchestra on a Silver Award at the VSMF

On Wednesday 5th August, String Orchestra played at the Hawthorn Arts Centre as part of the Victorian School Music Festival. They performed their best and received lots of helpful advice during a long workshop with the head adjudicator Dr Christopher Selby from the U.S.A. As a less experienced group this year, we are very proud of their achievements and the experience will set them up well for the Spring Concert in September. Thank you to Hannah Walters and Josh Verco for their incredible leadership of our wonderful string program. The students enjoyed a celebratory lunch afterwards at the Glenferrie Hotel. Thank you to El for arranging the logistics

Melbourne Jazz Festival – Workshop with Xani Kolac

On Thursday 13th August, members of the Senior and Junior Jazz Bands along with some select string players and Music Tech students, were treated to an incredible two hour workshop with Melbourne Jazz Violinist Xani Kolac. Xani was able to relate really well to our students having been a Music student at Blackburn High School. She began the session with a solo performance on her electric violin with effects and a looping pedal. The sounds that were produced were very different to those usually heard from a violin and the Music Tech kids really appreciated hearing a lot of the effects they had been learning about live.

After the performance, the students got to participate in exercises based around developing their own original ideas for improvising. All students had their own instruments and participated enthusiastically in the activities.

After the improvisation exercises, Xani demonstrated how her looping pedal worked and taught the students how to feel the beat and stomp on the looping pedal at the right time to create musical loops. Students were then able to try it themselves with Xani’s help. After this, they really appreciated the difficulties of tapping your foot in time while playing their instrument.

Overall, it was a very engaging workshop which was a fantastic way for our Jazz Band students to practice their improvisation skills before the VSMF. Thank you to the Melbourne Jazz Festival for providing this incredible free opportunity for our Music students.