Music Learning Area News 

Stage Band Success at Victorian School Music Festival! 

For the first time in 21 years, Wheelers Hill SC entered a Stage Band at the Victorian School Music Festival, performing on Tuesday August 15th. This event is held at the Hawthorn Town Hall, where school ensembles from across the state come to perform for each other, and be adjudicated by an expert panel. 

The Stage Band performed extremely well on the day, and were very excited to discover they had been awarded a Silver Shield! The adjudicators were particularly impressed with the band’s dynamics, rhythm, articulation and overall presentation. Congratulations to Mr. Gill and all band members for their thorough preparation over many months, which has led to this commendable achievement.  

We look forward to taking the Year 7 Concert Band to VSMF later in the year.  

Production Band 

I’d like to recognise the efforts of Music students (left) Gabby Weston (Year 12), (middle) Ben Mearns (Year 12) and (right) Alex Nash (Year 9) and their involvement in the school production band. These students rehearsed their parts for many months under the guidance of Mr Collins, our Production Musical Director, and were able to seamlessly fit in with the professional musicians who also joined the band. Percussion student Lilly McMullen (Year 9), also did an amazing job as Foley Fish Artist, managing live on stage all the sound effects that were required throughout the show. We hope that the number of students involved in our live production band will continue to grow in the future.  

Instrumental Music Assessment Week 

We are holding an Assessment Week for all instrumental students (except for students learning brass/woodwind in 7G), on the week starting Monday September 4th. This will provide a low-key performance opportunity for students during their usual lesson time, where they will perform one piece/song and some planned technical exercises to their teacher and another instrumental staff member. This will allow students to receive feedback on their instrumental progress, which will be included in their end of semester reports. If you have any further queries regarding this, please speak to your instrumental teacher, or contact me at kirsty.mechielsen@education.vic.gov.au 

Term 3 Instrumental Fees 

We have requested that fees for Term 3 are paid by today (Fri August 18th). Payment can be made through Compass. Please contact the General Office if you require a payment plan or other payment options. We hope to have Term 4 fees added in the next few weeks.  

Kirsty Mechielsen 

Head of Music