Starting the Year with a Bang!

By Freya Alblas and Michael Vincent, Year 12 Performing Arts Prefects

Last Friday, 17 February, students from Bernstein Symphonic Wind Orchestra, Camerata and Corelli Chamber String Orchestra left school and headed to Greenhills Conference Centre for Music Camp. Chorale joined the camp on Saturday afternoon.

Over three days, we experienced more than eight hours of rehearsals! While the first afternoon was fairly relaxed, the following days were packed with rehearsals with our wonderful conductors, teachers and accompanists – Mrs Knight, Dr Bourne, Mr Marston, Mrs Brown, Ms Steele and Mrs Suthers. On the second evening, we took a well-deserved break and participated in games, including musical trivia, Jeopardy, song-guessing games, and karaoke run by the Music Captains and Performing Arts Prefects.

Everyone’s hard work paid off at the concert on the final day, which showcased Chorale’s performance of Creep by Radiohead - accompanied by Mrs Brown on piano and Angus McKee on guitar; Camarata’s performance of Dot, dot, dot; Bernstein's performance of Skydance by Alan Menken; and Corelli’s performance of Brook Green Suite by Gustav Holst.

Thank you to our conductors, accompanists and Mr Thiessen and Mr Craven for staying overnight, as well as Mrs Maier for coming out during the day. We were very grateful for being able to take part in and even run parts of Music Camp this year.

We hope Music Camp was a fun and enriching experience for all who attended. We certainly enjoyed it and are excited to see what the rest of the year has in store for Performing Arts!