After a tumultuous six weeks for the Music Department, the competition season has all but finished; and it has been a pretty successful one.

Stage Band firstly headed to Rotorua for the Super Eight cultural festival winning the group section (photograph above). Mike Sung (clarinet) won the senior solo.

At the end of May the Stage Band again hit the road along with the Senior Concert Band directed by Mr Dredge to Lindesfarne College in Hastings to compete in the Hawke's Bay Festival of Bands. After solid performances, both returned with Gold awards with Scott Sun winning the solo section and Junhee Cho picking up the award for most promising soloist.

Next in line was the Manawatu Jazz Festival held over Kings Birthday weekend. Stage Band successfully retained the Best Manawatu band title which they have held since 2009. The PNBHS Combo performed creditably with Alex Christansen awarded best guitarist and Luca Tatana best drummer.

Stage Band also completed a video audition for the National Jazz Band-it competition, in which they finished second last year and are waiting to hear whether they have again made the top ten for the live finals in September

We were represented by two bands in Smokefree Rockquest but despite strong performances by Ruul 34 and Epidemic neither group came away with awards.

On the more sedate side of things; we had four groups in the Regional Chamber Music Competition, our PNBHS trio Torrence Cheung - violin, Mike Sung - clarinet and Scott Sun - Piano were awarded highly commended, along with Six Hands [on one piano] Scott Sun, Junhee Cho and Oliver Lu who are waiting to see if they have made the lower North Island festival. Our Guitar Trio and Junior String quartet also performed creditably.

The final major event in this round was the Big Sing Choral festival where our two choirs: the all comers Son of a Pitch [S.O.A.P.] and MANifesto, which takes over from OK Chorale as our elite ensemble preformed with 14 other choirs from around the region. After performing close to their best MANifesto won the best performance of a New Zealand work and was judged Best Overall Performance.

MANifesto is on the reserve list for the National Finale of NZ’s top 24 ensembles and will find out this week if they have made the cut. They will otherwise be performing at the lower North Island Cadenza in Whanganui. SOAP choir is a reserve for this event.

On an individual note Jesse Wallace was placed first in the fourteen to sixteen year old vocal section of the Manawatu Performing Arts Competition. Saem Milward won the most promising vocalist in the under 18 section, winning four of six classes.

Now we can take a break over the holidays and regroup next term for our Roadshow to contributing schools in Week One and our annual school concert which will be held in the evenings of August 8 and 9 in the Speirs Centre.

Thank you as always to our hardworking team of music tutors.

Below is a list of our National Representatives for 2023.

National Secondary Students Choir:

Saem Milward

Josh Webster

Jesse Wallace

Armani Whitehead Wilson

National Secondary Students Academy Choir: Axis Simon

National Secondary Students Orchestra: Torrence Cheung - Violin

National Youth Orchestra: Mike Sung - Clarinet