Term 3 Music News

2020 has certainly thrown up some curve balls to the usual annual programme in the Music Department. Creativity has reigned and innovative ideas have allowed the secondary school music scene to adapt and provide opportunities for our students.

Term II saw our students learning from home and our dedicated teachers provided their weekly lessons on line.

The annual Chamber Music Regional competition went online and we had four groups entered, all who performed their item, videoed the performance and then submitted them digitally.

The groups No Frets (Ciaran Carroll, Ray Su, Terrence Cheung) and The Honkers (Tom Varney, Kevin Cao, Arahan Pilkington, Leo Huang, Morgan Bradley) were both awarded highly commended. Honkers won the KBB Music Award and No Frets were the winners of Best Performance of a NZ Work. Ciaran Carroll was the pianist in the winning group Dimitri, who were semi finalists in the National competition.

The first public performance by any of our groups this year, was from the Stage Band who ventured to Norsewood on Saturday June 30th to take part in a combined community concert with the Lindisfarne College Band. This was very well received by a packed crowd.

The first week of term III saw a return to normal service and 80 students boarded buses to undertake our annual roadshow around Manawatu primary schools. Our first stop on the first morning was Bulls School, where we received a very warm reception, the day visiting country schools is always a very tight schedule, as we cover the country district. The next day was the turn of local Palmerston North Schools, and much enjoyment was had by everyone involved, helped by the performances of YMCA and Happy.

Joe Inman recorded a cornet solo for the NZ Brass Band Championships which for the first time were held online. Joe won the NZ under 19 Invitational Slow Medley with a very accomplished performance.

Just as the department was getting back into the flow of performance and audiences, The School Concert was held on Tuesday 11th August, after a solid start it showcased our best groups and performers this year including, OK Chorale, Symphonia, Big Band, Concert Band, Stage Band, Drum Squad along with the stunning pianist Ciaran Carroll, National Under 19 slow medley cornet champion Joe Inman, Taine George performing his own song which saw him awarded second place at the recent Girls High ‘Rock the House’ event, and a great narrative from the Bucket drummers on the various rubbish bins found around the school. There were many ensembles also included in the programme, No Frets string Trio, The Honkers Brass quintet, Saximus Maximus Sax quartet, and a Trumpet Trio from Year 12 students. As the Tuesday night concert ended the news came through that we were moving back to COVID-19 alert level 2 and so with much sadness the concert on Wednesday evening had to be cancelled. We hope to run this as a one-off event in the near future.

Students selected for New Zealand groups in 2020.

Carlos Fung NZ Secondary Students Choir

Sebastian Cave NZ Secondary Students Choir

Ray Su NZ Secondary Schools Orchestra

Joe Inman NZ Secondary Schools Brass Band – Principal Cornet

Reuben Bilsland NZ Youth Pipe Band