Sharing music throughout the school, at all times

January saw our Spring Term start with a truly awesome musical experience when 30 of our young singers travelled to Birmingham to sing their hearts out in the World Resorts Arena along with 6000 other children in a spectacular live performance with Heather Small, The Beatbox Collective and the brilliant virtuoso violinist Anna Phoebe. We are still riding the high from that magical experience!

Our February informal concert audience was treated to performances from brass players, a cellist, oboist, pianist and guitarist. The children enjoyed playing to our lovely audience of family and friends.

Some of our higher-level instrumental players attended an orchestral day at Uppingham in February. This involved a morning of sectional rehearsals before coming together to rehearse and perform to an audience. We had Copthill members of the orchestra in the Strings, Brass and Woodwind sections playing wonderfully as part of a 250 strong group.

Sharing our musical skills outside Copthill is always a thrill but we also love sharing music within school too. Our music sharing assembly gave us the chance to share some of our fabulous new curriculum learning to other year groups. We heard battle compositions by Year 5 and learnt about Maori culture and war drumming from Year 6 as well as trying out some drum patterns ‘rudiments’ led by our experts in Year 6.

Our ever-popular recorder troop of Year 3 shared their new performance piece ‘Joe Joe’ in assembly to a very appreciative audience and we all enjoyed a super rendition of ‘Hot Cross Buns’ for Easter.

The corridors have been buzzing with anticipation of the big reveal of the Year 6 show……..Mary Poppins. Preparation is now underway, auditions recorded and workshops beginning for speaking and singing parts. What an exciting time for our musicians at the top of the school.

We enjoyed performances in our March beginner’s informal concert by singers, a pianist and a guitarist all performing at the very start of their musical careers. Now they’ve got a posh performance under their belts who knows where their musical journey may end…The Royal Albert Hall maybe? This is one of the wonderful treats of my job; seeing children just starting out through to developing into confident performers holding their own on stage.

Our Tuesday lunchtimes continue to transport us to very posh eateries with our musical interludes amongst the clinking cutlery. With the addition of a piano to the dining room our repertoire is expanding. We enjoy solo, duet and small ensembles of various instruments whilst we dine.

Open morning this term gave the Music Department a chance to show some of our musical groups to our visitors. Jazz Band livened up the start to the day we also had our newly formed chamber group performing and piano players practising their duet pieces, orchestra met for a rehearsal as did Rock Band. The department was buzzing with sound!

The culmination of this term was a true highlight. The House Singing competition returned to Copthill! An inter-house competition where houses sing for the glory of winning the House Singing Cup. The theme was ‘Friends and Heroes’. All houses sang The Beatles song ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ as their round One entry set piece and then there were renditions of ‘We go together’ from Grease, ‘You will be found’ from Dear Evan Hansen, ‘Superheroes’– The Script and an a capella version of ‘Stand by me’ all judged by the fabulous adjudicator Mr Steve Hession, Musical Director of many stage productions and multi award winning youth choirs. With such wonderful performances by each house Mr Hession had a truly tricky job to find a winner. It was Milton that lifted the coveted cup for House Singing. Well done Milton! Congratulations to all children and staff on brilliant performances and for celebrating singing together in such a joyous way.

A fitting climax to a superb term of music-making at Copthill.