Back Row: Jonathan Croker, Irene Kim, Sarita Kotze, Catherine Dalton, Alia Govin-Fowler, Finn Tan, Phyllis Turner, Michaela Bayly, Annabelle Yang, Samuel Kennedy
4th Row: Monika Duncan, Emily Allan, Jack Buttle, Luca Cable, Huey Duncan, Isolde Johnson, Alex Gibson, Monet Schutte, Aadarsh Roy, Elle Ilkiw, Tor Chiles, Michael Chen
3rd Row: Cameron Smillie, Ameya Raut, William Cochrane, Caspar Adams, Lucas de Groot-Tsuji, Darcy Hollis, Caleb Langford, Austin Huang, Peter Langford, Eric Huang, Peter Croker, Samantha Soeters, Andrew Wu, Angel Zheng, James Anderson, Jason Li, Sho Woodhouse
2nd Row: Michael Khor, George Wilkins, Billy Wen, Reiss Fatani, Kirsty Croker, Aaron Zheng, Alfie Buttle, Sophie van der Krabben, Ana Lemon, Robert De Groot-Tsuji, Nanami Shibata, Pip Goomes
Front Row: Emma Mauger, Alyssa Holton, Lauren Mauger, Eimi Hongo, Francie Liebert, Shannon Shi, Lena Krakowiak, Mr C Petch (Teacher), Althea James, Penny Yang, Zoe Ng, Qiwen Zhang, Anastasia Bell, Catherine Wan, Aditi Goyal
by PhotolifeSymphonic Band
Althea James - November 15, 2022
This year the band consisted of about 70 students and is directed by Mr Chris Petch. Due to the COVID restrictions of 2022, Symphonic Band wasn’t able to rehearse as a full band until about mid-way through the year. Despite these difficulties, we still managed to perform and share our progress through our repertoire.
Symphonic Band’s first performance was at the Aurora Festival in August at our own Aurora Centre. Our pieces included Ignition, all 3 movements from the Longford Legend Suite and Bugler’s Holiday featuring 3 of our trumpet players as soloists: Lena Krakowiak, Luca Cable and Peter Croker. This performance also featured two student conductors, Lena Krakowiak and myself, Althea James. From the event we took away a Silver Award. As well as this performance we had the amazing opportunity of working with Auckland Philharmonia’s Vincent Hardaker in a workshop. Following this performance in September was the Christchurch Wind Festival. This performance again featured our 3 trumpet soloists and student conductor Sho Woodouse. This was our last performance where we took away a Gold Award and Best Flute Section.
Since being a member of Symphonic Band since year 9, this is where the beginning of my ensemble skills started. This group will always have a special place in my memory as it’s where I have spent 5 years of my musical journey. I’d like to thank my fellow student conductors of this ensemble, Lena Krakowiak and Sho Woodhouse for being great people to work with and of course Mr Petch. On behalf of Symphonic Band I’d like to thank Mr Petch for his guidance for the ensemble and the great impact he has had on so many players this year.