Instrumental Music Program
SCHOOL MUSIC GROUP REPORTS
SEMESTER 2 2023
The Lee St Band has been involved in several performances this term. In October we played Yellow Submarine and The Addams Family for the students from Gowrie who came to visit our school. In November, we performed to our school community in a Music Showcase along with the other School Music Groups. And last week, we finished off a great year of music together with our performance of Ho Hey at the Summer Soiree. Congratulations to all the players, and best wishes to the grade 6s who are moving to high school next year!
Ceri Hills
Band Conductor
The Lee Street Choir have been preparing two pieces for the Summer Soiree this term, Royals by Lorde and Firework by Katy Perry. The performance was a huge success and we had such a ball! Each week we have been warming up our voices with range extending exercises, tongue twisters and increasing familiarity with the major scale to develop good pitch. In preparation for the soiree pieces, the choir members worked hard on the wordy parts of Royals which can be a bit of a tongue twister but they had a lot of fun breaking it down and it was very satisfying when they nailed it. Firework was much more well known among our members already and the students had a lot of fun with this one. All choir members had input on coming up with the choreography for both songs which was a blast experimenting with different moves until we decided on the final ones. A massive congratulations to the whole choir for their performance and hard work this term! It has been a delight to hear the songs come together and a lot of fun with along the way. I look forward to a new repertoire for 2024, it’s going to be a lot of fun with some fantastic repertoire in store!
Jean Proude
Choir Conductor
This semester the Junior Recorder Ensemble have done really well, learning to listen to each other and keep the beat. We played Bob the Builder and Peppa Pig for the Gowrie students. Then we lost our top five players to senior ensemble and welcomed 15 new members to our group! Since then we have learnt to play One Man Went to Mow, which we played at the Showcase and Summer Soiree.
Rachel Snedden
Junior Recorder Ensemble Conductor
The Senior Recorder Ensemble have had a great semester of playing. In term 3 we very much enjoyed preparing for this years Recorder Event, playing Chariots of Fire and Under the Sea at assembly for practise and then at the Event. We did not win a prize but we did play our best on the night and that was satisfying. Then we gained five players from the junior ensemble, who worked hard to learn the new music. We also played for Gowrie, the Showcase, the 150th Assembly and the Summer Soiree. At the Summer Soiree we again played our best with He’s a Pirate and Barbie Girl.
Rachel Snedden
Senior Recorder Ensemble Conductor
The String Ensemble has been a great opportunity for students to participate in an extracurricular activity. It is a wonderful learning tool that helps develop a great variety of skills and good work habits that generate confidence, responsibility, co-operation, self -discipline, team work, and friendship. This semester we mainly worked on an old-time fiddle tune called ‘Soldier’s Joy” and inserted another old-time tune called ‘Angeline the Baker’.The violins swapped the main melody and accompaniment chords throughout the songs and the guitars complemented the tune with a variety of different strumming techniques. We played this song in the recent Summer Soirée performance along with a song called ‘I Like the Flowers’. The students played with a sense of enthusiasm and joy, capturing the lively spirit of both songs. I have enjoyed working with this group and will be sad to see quite a lot of the members moving on to Year 7 next year. I wish them all the best and hope they continue their wonderful musical journeys.
Kate Connor
String Ensemble Conductor