Music News

Virtual Soirées Invitation

Submissions for our 4th Virtual Soirée are looking slim and we invite all of our student musicians to prepare a video-recorded performance from home and send it to their teacher for approval. Please make your video performances as formal as possible (ie. not in a bedroom), play with a recorded accompaniment if possible, and film in horizontal format, not vertical/portrait. Recording on a smartphone or iPad/tablet is usually fine unless the device is very old.

With upcomming Cycle 5 assessments and possible AMEB exams approaching, there should be quite a few students with pieces at various standards ready to ‘perform’. 

Remember you do not need to be advanced to prepare a great performance at your particular level.

Term 4 Instrumental Music Lessons and Ensembles

We’ve been very excited to have Year 7, 11 and 12 students back at school this week. You may be aware that at this stage the Department of Education and Training have placed restrictions on playing wind instruments and singing at school. While we are hopeful that these restrictions will be relaxed as soon as possible, in the meantime our brass, woodwind and singing teachers are using a range of strategies to enable lessons to go ahead. In some cases, this will mean a continuation of teachers working remotely as they cannot properly demonstrate whilst unable to play or sing in the school environment.

Your child's instrumental music teacher will keep you informed and is available through Compass if you have any questions. As usual, please also check Compass carefully each day/week for lesson and rehearsal arrangements.

String and Percussion lessons at this stage are unaffected and will be going ahead for those at school, and on Teams for those still working remotely. String ensemble rehearsals are also on when they are scheduled into Compass. Ensemble directors will provide details for each ensemble so students should please check school email each day.

We are very conscious that music lessons are of paramount importance for many students for their health and wellbeing. Please be assured that we will continue to do everything possible to maintain these weekly lessons, and we look forward to returning to a state or normality as soon as we have more guidance from the Department of Education and we can all be confident around safe working environments for students and staff.

Carl Williams

Instrumental Music Administrator