The Arts

Joining with St Joseph's 

St Norbert College was again proud to collaborate with St Joseph’s School this year with their Year 5 Band Program; one which provides every student in the year level the chance to learn a wind instrument almost fully funded by St Joseph’s School. In addition to heavily subsidised lessons, the students have the chance to play in a 63 piece ‘big band’, further refining the skills that they’ve learnt in their lessons in an ensemble format and developing new skills such as working in a big team, listening to other people and instruments play and following a conductor.

All of the students’ hard work came to fruition on Monday 6 December where they performed two concerts in the ORC; one during the day to the Year 1-4 students and an evening concert for family and friends. Both performances highlighted how far the students had developed musically over the course of 10 months, and even showcased some outstanding individuals and duos who showed significant progress throughout the year. Well done to all of the Year 5 students on an incredible job!

A special thank you to Mr Rose (St Joseph’s School Principal) as well as Year 5 teachers Miss Reid, Miss Williams and Mrs Tarle whose support throughout the year made it all possible. Thank you as well to St Norbert College instrumental tutors Mr Peter Chan (Brass), Miss Kyla-Rae Ashworth (Flute) and Miss Caitlin Burke (Woodwind) for their expertise and passion in helping these students have the positive experience that they had. And as always, thank you as well to Mrs Katherine Freind for her assistance with this program and the St Norbert College Instrumental/Vocal Music Program this year.

The concert followed a recent performance by two of our Year 10 bands at St Joseph's Family Fun Day.

Congratulations to all involved!

Mr C Beins

 (Head of Learning Area – The Arts)

Chorale Carols at Harold Hawthorne

The College Chorale performed this week at the Harold Hawthorne Community Centre Christmas lunch, writes Heather Bruyns and Maygen Brosztl (Year 9): 

"We headed off in the bus during second period and despite the stifling heat, we were greeted by enthusiastic and smiling faces. We started our program with “Snowman” by Sia but made sure not to neglect the classic favourites. We were thrilled by the amazingly positive response that we received from the audience which made the whole experience extremely rewarding. We had so much fun, especially with the more modern songs like “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey. Ms Kyd kindly arranged some special Christmas treats for us to hand out. This provided a welcome opportunity for us to interact with our special audience members while wishing them a very Merry Christmas!  We are so grateful to our fabulous conductor and accompanist, Miss Murphy, as well as Mr Beins who shared accompanist duties and along with Mrs Freind joined us in the choir. Thank you for the beautiful descants Mrs Freind! Thanks also to Mrs Silva for getting us there and back again safely on the bus and Ms Kyd for the special Christmas goodies. We received such wonderful feedback from everybody and are privileged to be part of this opportunity to share the Christmas spirit and witness the joy that even a small gesture can bring. I’m sure we all can’t wait to do it again next year.''