It has been wonderful this year to have performing arts experts all working together in the renovated Whare Toi Whakaari with new rehearsal spaces. The energy has been amazing and the opportunities for groups to collaborate creatively has been exciting for us all.

Mrs Beer (Music) will be performing in Wicked with Showbiz next April as a backing singer. She has been inspired by all of the wonderful performances happening this year to get back into performing herself.

Mrs Joanne Clark (Drama) learned a lot about acting on a thrust stage from seeing Shakespeare’s Henry V at the Popup Glob, a replica Elizabethan Theatre in Auckland.  She has been creating steampunk props and expanding her dance repertoire with veil skills.

Matua Corey, often mistaken by students for a famous Jamaican musician, has shared his passion for music with several junior classes. Matua has been specialising in composing and classes have been working on their creative excellence in this field.

Miss Sarah Richardson, a very experienced singer and musical theatre practitioner (we saw her in the UC Music production of Rent this year) has worked with Voices with Soul and the junior choir.

We are very lucky to have 6 extremely talented music itinerants at Hornby.

• Barbara Mulholland - voice
  
• Marie Gutsell - Piano
  
• Tim Sellars - Drum
  
• Mike Fudakowski - Bass
  
• Ray McMurdo - Guitar
  
• Neville Forsythe - Piano and Woodwind.
  

They have had another enjoyable year teaching our musicians and we have seen a huge increase in senior musicians gaining Merit and Excellence in their performance standards.

Spotlight on Tim and the drumming students this year….

Tim would like to applaud the hard work and fine results of students at Hornby High School. In particular, Lachlan Hickford and Isaac Frank have been making positive steps on the drum kit. Lachlan (who is also a talented guitarist) is building the fundamental skills at a quick rate and is aiming to do drums for his second instrument standard for year 12 next year. Isaac (year 10) is extremely keen and comes back to lessons every week having worked on the necessary material. He will be a great addition to the year 11 Music class next year. Both of these students are learning a variety of grooves, learning to read music, and getting to put these skills in a band setting which is very positive.