All of the Ballarat High School music ensembles have been rehearsing and lessons are taking place on a weekly basis, while adhering to Covid mitigation strategies.

On Tuesday 18th May we ran our first ‘Jazz Before dark’ concert in the Robinson Theatre to a large and very appreciative audience. The gig showcased student work from years 7 to 12 on vocals and a variety of instruments playing jazz and blues standards, original music and improvising. The show was compered by two of our 2021 music captains: Jade Moran and Harry Newitt; Lulu Gersbeck is our third music captain.

On Thursday 20th June, ‘Whizbang’ performed at the regional Music Festival held at Phoenix College. The event was attended by seven schools from across the region and the Band shone in their original songs, style and stage presence.

That same evening also saw a large audience attend the first year 7 bands’ concert for the year with over 70 year 7 musicians on stage celebrating their achievements so far in 2021. The night was compered by our music captains and saw the relaunch of the ‘Performing Arts Support Group’ with a number of parents signing-on to join the group to help foster and promote the performing arts at Ballarat High School.

Unfortunately, the Covid lockdown saw the postponement of our Ballarat Jazz Club, woodwind and brass concerts. All three have now been re-scheduled for early term three, restrictions permitting. The Regional Recording project which involves BHS students along with several other secondary schools within the region recording original work by Horsham-based composer Nick Shirrefs, has also been postponed. We also hope to undertake this recording in early term three.

Vet music first and second year concerts have been conducted to in-house audiences as our students continue to hone their musical and stagecraft skills.

In the world of Drama and Theatre we have had some successes with our recent performance nights.

VCE Drama Ensembles showcased some brilliant satirical comedy, with the audience sharing many laughs and on the whole students did themselves proud. This task being ensemble, requires them to work together closely for the bulk of the semester, so the performance night is a great celebration of their efforts.

Elley Jones' Year 11 Theatre class presented a scene study from August Strindberg's 'Miss Julie'. The premise for this task was creating as naturalistic a scene as possible. The student’s ability to not only learn a LOT of lines but also bring so much life and character was captivating.

Year 12 Theatre class lucked out entirely - they were due to present 'Cut Snake' on Friday 28th May when the state went into lockdown. So, we are still holding onto some hope that we can bring this performance to an audience again in the future. The students scrambled to present a rehearsal which we filmed on the student free Thursday (they had planned to be on site rehearsing for the Friday on that Thursday).

During lockdown production rehearsals continued via our google classroom meets. There is a screenshot of that first sunny Sunday in Lockdown. Once again, I am impressed with student’s dedication and commitment.

Ballarat High School Newsletter

Issue 10 · 24 Jun 2021

In this issue