MUSICAL NOTES

Term II

In the final week of Term II, our Acting Head of Vocal Studies, Dr Koen van Stade, organised a special recital in Big School for vocal pupils where they collaborated with Grammar guitar tutor Mr Tommie Andersson to perform songs for lute, organ and voice. Repertoire mainly included 17th Century songs from England written by composers such as Thomas Campion and John Dowland.

Towards the end of Term II, Oliver Hu (Form I – clarinet) was selected as one of three finalists in the Lane Cove Band Young Soloists Competition and Jamie Wallace (Form V – violoncello) was selected as a finalist in the prestigious Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra’s Secondary Schools Concerto Competition – both great achievements! Congratulations also go to Tiger Han (II), who was selected to play in the first round of the Young Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition, and Jerry Yu (V), who was invited to play in an organ masterclass with renowned Notre Dame Cathedral organist Olivier Latry at the Sydney Opera House.

During the first week of the Term II holidays, around forty musicians travelled on a band tour to the South Coast of NSW where they performed for pupils at a number of regional primary schools. Some of the schools visited had fewer pupils than the number of boys in the band, and many had never had the opportunity to hear a live concert band in performance before. The tour was a great success, and the boys were excellent ambassadors for the School. Thanks go to the Music Association for their generous support of this tour.

Term III

Term III is a particularly busy term for the Music department, and we hit the ground running with our Term III Concert A in Week 2. The concert featured a diverse range of ensembles including string orchestras, vocal groups, jazz combos and all of the College Street concert bands. We were delighted to once again welcome bands from both Preparatory Schools – the Grainger Wind Ensemble from St Ives and the Wind Ensemble from Edgecliff. This concert was closely followed by a combined guitar concert. Grammar hosted this annual event, which includes guitarists from Cranbrook School and Ascham. The concert showcased a variety of small and large guitar ensembles and culminated in a combined performance which featured 120 guitarists on stage!

We were delighted to welcome renowned concert pianist and writer Mr Simon Tedeschi to the School this term for two different musical events. The first was a lunchtime concert in the Alastair Mackerras Theatre, where Simon performed a variety of works for piano and provided some entertaining information and anecdotes about the works between pieces. A large audience of boys and staff thoroughly enjoyed Simon’s entertaining performance. The following week Simon returned to adjudicate the Vocal and Instrumental sections of our annual Form V Music Competition. As always, the standard was extremely high, and Simon was given the difficult task of deciding on the winners. First Place in the Vocal section went to Elliott Razavi and in the Instrumental section, First Place was given to Raymond Wang (clarinet), while Leo Huang (tuba) was awarded Second Place and Jamie Wallace (violoncello) Third Place. The Jazz section was adjudicated by Dr Steve Barry from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and he awarded First Place to Harry Awad (piano).

Following the Trial Examinations, the Term III Concert B was held. As always, this concert featured senior ensembles that included many Form VI boys and it was a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge the significant contribution these boys have made to music at the School, in what was for many of them their final College Street performance.

The concert opened with a piece by the Wind Ensemble that required the players to be scattered all around the John Vallance Hall, producing a unique “surround sound” experience for the audience. Other senior ensembles performing in the concert included Big Band, Grammarphones, School Choir and AMCO. The concert concluded with the School Orchestra presenting a powerful performance of Mars from The Planets by British composer Gustav Holst.

On 30 August musicians from all three campuses convened at the St Ives Preparatory School for a special evening of jazz – the first time this has been done! The concert included jazz combos and big bands from Edgecliff, St Ives and College Street. The St Ives hall was decorated beautifully and this set the tone for a wonderful evening of jazz. It was great to see the progression of boys in the jazz programme from preparatory school to senior high school and no doubt the younger boys were inspired by the high level of performance from groups such as the College Street Big Band and the Khusid Ensemble. The combined concert is set to become an annual event and will be hosted by Edgecliff next year.

Anthony Chan (OS 2016)

Anthony Chan has just completed his first year of a Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School in New York, where he is majoring in Performance on the violin. Earlier this year he was selected as one of thirty violin fellows to take part in the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara over the summer. This gave him the opportunity to work closely with guest conductors such as David Robertson and Xian Zhang. He was then selected as the sole fellow to perform in “The Faure Project” where he was the second violinist in Faure’s Piano Quintet in C minor, op. 115 with their Mosher Guest Artists. The ensemble included pre-eminent performers such as Joshua Bell on the violin and Steven Isserlis on the cello.

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