musical futures

Karen Harris
Karen Harris

Karen Harris

Principal

 

At the end of April, BSC instrumental music teacher Kathleen McGuire visited England for a few days to accept an award and to undertake professional development at a renowned London secondary school.

 

Kathleen was presented with the inaugural Alumni Achievement Award by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Max Lu, of the University of Surrey, Guildford, where she had completed her Master of Music degree 22 years ago. She was selected because of her work as a conductor and composer, particularly in relation to social justice and human rights advocacy. 

 

During her trip, Kathleen also visited the Morpeth School in inner-city London. Of the 1800 students in this multicultural school, 70% are living below the poverty line. In spite of socio-economic challenges, 12 years ago music teacher Peter Romhany saw an opportunity to teach music in a more hands-on way to encourage more students to participate in and benefit from learning music. His method, combined with research and inspiration from other like-minded music educators, is now known as Musical Futures. 

 

In 2017 Brunswick Secondary College became a Musical Futures Champion School so Dr McGuire was excited to have this opportunity to visit a well-established program and experience firsthand its incredible successes. She spent a day at the school talking with Mr Romhany and other teachers, learning about their school and how their program developed. Those teachers were in turn interested to learn about our musical theatre program at BSC, which is unique in its inclusiveness and how it also applies Music Futures philosophy. 

 

Kathleen also visited Canterbury Cathedral where she attended an Evensong service sung by one of the world's finest choir of boys and has returned to Brunswick with fresh ideas and enthusiasm to enrich our BSC performing arts programs.