Autumn Music Round Up
Headington School’s musicians have been excited to work together and in person again after a year of ‘bubble separation’ and complications around performing.
This half term has seen the return of the School’s open mic night, lunchtime and teatime concerts, with a fantastic ‘new musicians’ concert at the end of September kick-starting the series and a recent lunchtime concert completing the half term’s events.
The whole school has also had the chance to enjoy performances from the Sixth Form String Quartet, the Chamber Choir, Charlotte and Webbe during prayers this half term and we look forward to showcasing more musicians in the coming weeks.
At the start of October, Victoria treated the Music Department to a very special recital. Victoria is a young pianist in L4 who is performing regularly at national competitions. As a warm-up for an upcoming competition in Wales, Victoria performed part of her programme.
Another highlight has been a new partnership with St John Fisher Primary School in Littlemore. Headington’s music staff are working with Year 4, 5 and 6 pupils on Fridays throughout this year, sharing skills and facilities and providing some exciting performance opportunities for them. Mr Penman took the saxophone quartet to visit the primary school at the start of term to perform and launch the initiative (which caused great excitement!) and over the last few weeks, pupils have worked on a special music video for their school website.
Head of Performing Arts Mrs Aimee Jamison said: “It’s been wonderful to see such young children singing in a real studio, and we look forward to sharing the end product with them.”
In the spirit of music-making in and with the community, a group of sixth formers visited the Fulbrook Centre at the Churchill Hospital to perform a concert of varied pieces to patients suffering with acute mental health problems. The hospital and patients were delighted with the visit and Mr Anderson said it was ‘very moving’ to see the patients’ reactions to hearing live music.
Mrs Jamison said: “It’s been such a wonderful start to the year, I’ve been so delighted to hear our girls performing live again. Headington’s Open Mic is always a highlight and the crowd and I were thrilled to see many new faces performing both covers and original songs. Victoria’s intimate performance was a real delight – we wish Victoria well for her upcoming competitions!
“I’ve also been so proud to hear the groups from St John Fisher Primary School come so far and in such a short period of time. Well done to Mr Humphries and Mr Penman for their noble efforts with this project, we can’t wait to hear their recordings and see their new music video!
“We look forward to hearing more from all of our talented musicians as the year progresses.”
