Performing Arts

Music

Senior School Music Night

We warmly invite parents, families and friends to join us for Beyond the Score: Senior Music Night, an evening celebrating the creativity, passion and artistry of our Senior Music students. Come and enjoy a wonderful program of live performance and share in the culmination of many hours of dedicated practice, rehearsal and musical refinement. Beyond the Score will be held on Tuesday, 8 September, at 6.30pm in St Anne’s Performing Arts Centre. Tickets are free, however, bookings are essential: https://events.humanitix.com/loreto-college-senior-music-night-2026

Catholic Schools’ Music Festival

Join us on Wednesday, 23 September, at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre as Loreto lights up the stage at the Catholic Schools’ Music Festival. Featuring our Year 6 cohort singing in the massed choir, this event is an integral part of the Performing Arts calendar. 

Tickets are available now via Ticketek: premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?sh=CSMFEST26

Spotlight on Co-curricular Staff

Jade Elsdon and Jenny Hu

Our College is fortunate to have a strong network of co-curricular Performing Arts tutors who provide regular tutelage to students in a variety of disciplines. Over the coming months, we will spotlight these wonderful tutors who do so much for our community.

Jade Elsdon

Jade Elsdon is an Adelaide-based oboist currently completing a Bachelor of Music (Honours) at The Elder Conservatorium of Music (Adelaide University), where she studies under oboist Joshua Oates, Principal Oboist of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Having graduated with a Bachelor of Music (Advanced) in Classical Performance in 2025 from the University of Adelaide, Jade has built a strong presence in the South Australian music scene. She holds the position of Principal Oboe with both the Adelaide Youth Orchestra and the Australian Army Band Adelaide, and performs as a casual musician with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Earlier this year, she appeared as concerto soloist with the Elder Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra, performing the Marcello Oboe Concerto, and with the Unley Symphony Orchestra, performing the Haydn Oboe Concerto.

Jade is also a passionate educator, teaching students from Years 2 to 12 across seven Adelaide schools. As part of her Bachelor of Music (Advanced) degree, she authored a beginner oboe tutor book, demonstrating her commitment to broadening access to the instrument and nurturing the next generation of musicians. Having attended an all-girls school herself, Jade understands the value of an environment where girls feel confident developing as young musicians, and hopes to encourage more girls to take up the oboe. 

Jade's dedication to the instrument has been recognised through a series of prestigious awards, including the Jiri Tancibudek Memorial Scholarship for Oboe (2025 and 2026), honouring exceptional promise in oboe performance; the Selborne Moutray Russell Prize for Orchestral Instrument (2025); the Victor Allen Edgeloe Scholarship for Woodwind (2023); the AMEB SA & NT Oboe Certificate of Performance Prize (2022); and the University of Adelaide David Hunter Music Education Prize (2025).

Jenny Hu

Jenny Hu is an Adelaide-born flautist and a graduate of the Elder Conservatorium, where she completed her Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours under the tutelage of Elizabeth Koch AM. She has performed with the Adelaide Wind Orchestra and the Band of South Australia Police. Jenny also performs regularly with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Alongside her orchestral work, Jenny has performed in a variety of settings, such as musicals, festivals and solo concerts. She has participated in international summer festivals such as Orford Musique (Canada), Beyond the Masterclass (USA), and the Croatia Flute Academy.

Most recently, Jenny performed in the orchestra for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast musical during its Adelaide season, as well as with Ministry of Sound at the 2025 Harvest Rock Festival. As a music educator, Jenny has been teaching flute at Loreto College since 2021, and she has found it incredibly rewarding to work with the students at Loreto. She enjoys inspiring the next generation of music lovers and watching her students grow their confidence and passion for music. 

Learning the flute is popular with students who would like to spread their wings and challenge themselves. Similarly, we would love to establish an oboe ensemble here at Loreto. If your daughter is interested in learning the oboe or flute, or would simply like to know more about what these instruments are like – especially if she loves playing the recorder!  – please let Ms Elicia Baldwin, Music Ensembles and Instrumental Coordinator, know that you are interested either by speaking with her directly or emailing elicia.baldwin@loreto.sa.edu.au or performingarts@loreto.sa.edu.au. 

Drama

A View From The Stalls 

The Value of Co-Curricular Arts

As rehearsals for our co-curricular production, Matilda, continue apace, I have been reflecting on the inherent value of artistic endeavours for the College community. With preparations underway for myriad upcoming events, such as the Mission Day Talent Show, the wonderful LOSA Community Mass and the Senior School Music Night, the practice rooms are busy, and the sounds of music are drifting across the Square as I write. 

Recently, days have been dawning crisp and clear, and as the seasons change, so too does our focus, becoming sharper and more aware. The very nature of a school means that we work in terms, mirroring the seasons, sowing the seeds at the beginning of the year and reaping the rewards at the end. Opportunities for Senior School students to present their major performance works in Term 3 recognise their dedication and celebrate their achievements. It may be the first time we come together to present refined work after the winter and reveal the early shoots of growth among newer ensembles. The bare beauty of winter allows a closer look at the landscape; the seasonal ebb and flow of hard work and effort ensuring rich growth, which is when strong roots are established.

I had a conversation this week with a student who told me she is finding rehearsals difficult. (It is important to note that rehearsal periods for large-scale shows or major works can stretch out over sixteen to twenty weeks, spanning two to three seasons, often quietening in winter as new material is learned and worked through). Students new to the process can struggle with the weight of it all. It is challenging to sing, dance, act, remember cues, learn dialogue and block movement. For context, the opening song in Matilda runs for eleven minutes, and it has taken roughly seven hours of rehearsal to choreograph sixty-five students in this scene. In this dark, damp season, the ebullience of summer and the majesty of autumn have long passed and the light of spring is too far off to be seen. This can be a difficult period, one which tests patience and strength. Illness can strike a cast down at any moment. Family circumstances may affect the ability to attend ensemble rehearsals. The most vital skill that can be modelled and taught is persistence.

We focus on several key areas of teaching and learning in the Arts: practice, rehearsal, repetition, memory, automaticity, mastery and performance, and after six weeks it can be discouraging for an ensemble to realise we are still in the primary stages. The simple truth is that improvements in learning and performance in the arts take time: consistent processes produce gradual results rather than providing instant gains. 

Perhaps, then, one of the greatest gifts we can offer young artists is simply time: time to practise, to rehearse, to repeat; time to struggle with something, to get it wrong before mastering it; time to let them do it; time to breathe through the hard parts; time for knowledge to become instinct and technique to become automatic; time for an ensemble to grow together and for individual confidence in new dance steps to take root. In the Performing Arts, we understand that the harvest cannot be hurried. The polished performance that our audience sees is only the final flowering of countless hours that came before it. As we move out of winter and towards the promise of spring, it is worth celebrating not only what our students will ultimately present on the stage, but the talent and tenacity required to get there. Great performance takes time, and giving our young people that time is one of the most valuable investments a school can make.

Paula Little

Director of Performing Arts