The month of February saw our annual Solo Music Competition take place in the Music School Hall. Musicians from the Junior Prep, Senior Prep, Senior School and Sixth Form performed, to compete against each other for a chance to win their category. The students performed not only to each other and a parental and staff audience, but also an external adjudicator – an expert within the music industry, with a vast amount of experience and knowledge to pass on to our young musicians.
As usual, the Solo Music Competition is an excellent opportunity for our students to showcase their musical talents and the repertoire they had been working on so far during this academic year. This year’s individual competitions started before half term on 5 February, followed by the Strings and Percussion on the 7th. The competitions resumed after half term with the woodwind and brass taking place on 20 February, followed by voice on the 21st. At the end of each competition, the adjudicator awarded a winner for each category, who would then progress to the Winners Concert.
All the individual winners then came together on Monday 26 February for the annual Winners’ Concert. The winners of each category performed, as well as our Rising Star winner, Joseph Head, who was nominated and ultimately chosen for his vast improvement in his saxophone playing over the course of the academic year so far. Music ranged from Faure to Jimmy Hendrix, from Adele to Liszt, showcasing the range of genres studied within the Music department. It was an excellent opportunity for some of our youngest winners from the Beginner category – the youngest being only in Year 4 – to watch our more experienced Sixth Form students performing. We hope they were inspired by them and motivated to keep on practicing and performing – perhaps one day they could win the Advanced category too!
Overall, this competition highlighted the impressive musical ability of our school, and it was superb to see so many students participate and support each other when performing.
“ Congratulations to everyone who took part in the competition and was willing to put themselves out there to receive feedback from the adjudicators. Thank you to the friends and families who came to support, and especially to our outstanding adjudicators, who were left very impressed by the standard of Music at the College ” Neil Matthews, Director of Music
