Music News From Term 3
Term 3 has seen an incredible series of musical achievements on the local and national stage.
Term 3 Music Success
At the ARA JazzQuest competition Burnside High School Big Band won a Gold Award and the “Best Big Band” title for a fifth consecutive year. Our Junior Jazz Ensemble and Funk Band also won Gold Awards.
RAQS (Hijiri Yamamoto, Claudia Crosland and Lixin Zhang) reached the National Final of the NZCT Chamber Music Contest and won the KBB Award, a huge achievement in this highly competitive field.
Our senior choirs took part in a day of workshops and a concert under the guidance of renowned American Choral Director Jo-Michael Scheibe, later competing at The Big Sing National Finale where both Bel Canto and Senior Chorale won Gold Awards with Bel Canto also picking up the Tour Time trophy for “Best Performance of a Classical Work”. Malestrom once again won the regional Barbershop Chorus contest and go on to compete at the National Finals in Tauranga.
Our Concert Band and Orchestra are now National Champions, both ensembles having won their class at the Wellington Band and Orchestral Festival. The Concert Band and Junior Concert Band also won Gold Awards at the CWSTMA Wind Festival in Christchurch.
Malestrom retained their title as National champions in the Young Singers In Harmony contest, held this year in Tauranga. Their score of 79 points is sufficient to qualify for the World Championships and Malestrom are now ranked 24 in the whole world, including all adult choirs in the Barbershop Men’s Chorus category. In addition our two competing quartets enjoyed great success with “Low Expectations” (Will Lynch, Will Harris, Harry Burt and Sam Quirk) finishing in second place and “The Three Baris” (Bob Gaudin, Lewis Grey, Grant Wong and Alex Meekings) finishing 6th.
No other school in the country enjoys this level of success in so many musical genres. These achievements maintain Burnside High School’s national reputation for musical excellence, whether it be in the field of Choral Music, Jazz, Orchestra and Band Music, Contemporary or Chamber Music.
Aside from all this competition, there have been a number of outstanding concerts and performances to enjoy too; Sing South at the Transitional Cathedral, Mid-Year recitals from our Specialist Music Programme students, The Voices Festival, Contemporary Café at The Tannery, Contemporary Showcase at the Papa Hou Theatre, Orchestral Showcase and Orchestral Festival.
At the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra's recent 2019 season launch event a number of Burnside Music Department alumni were revealed as featuring heavily. 2019 is going to be a very exciting year for the orchestra as they move back in to the Town Hall and the works chosen for the concert programmes reflect that.
Salina Fisher (ex SMP Strings), now studying composition at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, is having two of her works performed, including the Christchurch premiere of "Rainphase" - the piece with which she won the SOUNZ composition award a couple of years ago.
Tony Chen Lin (ex SMP Piano) was asked to select a new Steinway piano from the factory in Hamburg for the Town Hall and will play it as featured soloist in the opening concert of the year on March 2nd.
Ben Morrison (ex SMP Strings and now a member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra) will perform the Korngold Violin Concerto with the orchestra in May
That's in addition to a large number of ex students who are members of the orchestra itself. Another example of Burnside musicians making their mark on the worldwide stage. Please consider going along to support them, full details of the CSO 2019 concert season are online.
The finale to our busy term will be “The Rat Pack”; a tribute to the songs of Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin performed by our multi award-winning Big Band with 20 piece string section and vocal soloists from the Specialist Music Programme. This concert is being held at The Piano, 7.00pm on Saturday 29th September and is sure to sell out so get your tickets quickly from the student office.
Upcoming 2018 Music Department Events…
Christchurch Big Band Festival – Labour Weekend
Burnside High School Big Band performs a concert programme on Saturday 20th October at Turanga Central Library at 1.00pm and the encore performance of “The Rat Pack” at the Little Andromeda Theatre on Sunday 21st October at 1.00pm. Check out www.bigbandfest.org for full details of the weekend’s events
Choral Extravaganza – Thursday 25th October at 7.00pm
Please join us for our annual choir showcase concert at St Mary’s Pro Cathedral
Specialist Music Programme Gala Day – Saturday 3rd November
Join us at The Piano for a day of recitals from our talented SMP students: 11.00am: Piano concert; 1.00pm: Woodwind concert; 3.00pm: Strings concert; 5.00pm: Brass concert; 7.00pm: Senior Voice concert. Come to as many as you like!
NCEA Scholarship Recital - Monday 12th November
Join us in the intimate setting of The Chamber at The Piano, 12.10pm, to hear our five scholarship candidates present their solo recitals: Hijiri Yamamoto, violin; Kate King, French Horn, Lixin Zhang, piano, Claudia Crosland, Saxophone and Michael Cai, Piano.
Junior Showcase – Wednesday 5th December, Aurora Centre, 7.00pm
Our end-of-year concert featuring all our junior ensembles, joined by our musical friends from Westburn School.
Find Burnside High School Music Department at:
https://www.facebook.com/BurnsideHighSchoolMusicDepartment
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