Finally, more bees and butterflies are out and about; we are welcoming the warmer weather recently. Our senior students have finished their internal assessments and are sitting for the external exams from 6th November.

We have had a successful and eventful year of music-making this year. After many musical school events and competitions, we had ten significant National Level of Achievements. The School of Music (Music Specialist Course) Year 13 student Lucy Gray's single 'Pretty' reached #19 on the Top 40 charts in New Zealand in April. In the same class of 13HSM, Ruby Kaya won three competitions this year. She won 1st place in the Canterbury Final for the Solo/Duo category of SmokeFree RockQuest. She was selected as top 40 and recorded her song for the Peace Song Songwriting Competition and Play It Strange Songwriting Competition. Mainstream Year 13 class students Nova Taukamo and Paolo Vallero Reid also won the top 40 at the Play It Strange Songwriting Competition.

For the Rock genre, MALTA and Stupidsayswhat got through to the regional final this year. Regarding the Jazz Genre, the jazz combo Dr Vesuvius and the Apostles of Groove received a silver award at the JazzQuest and a gold award at the Southern Jam Jazz Competition. Year 12 School of Music student Sid Hoggard-Wells received a prestigious Best Drummer award.

Big Band Festival

Thank you to some of you who came along and supported our local music scene! Our Hagley Big Band performed at an annual Big Band Festival. https://www.chchbigbandfest.com/

The band said their highlight of this year was performing at the Riverside Market. The following students performed at the Riverside market on Thursday and Victoria Square on Saturday: Isla Ballantine, Peri Campion, William Densem, Kahu Gray, Dom Hamilton, Ashton Johnson, Manaaki Johnson, Zaiya Lemanu, Roddy MacPherson, Isla Roper-Gee, and Joel Sam. This year, we performed all of our original arrangements. Kahu arranged 'Chitlin Con Carne' by Kenny Burrell, Joel arranged 'TEZETA' by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and the rest of all the arrangements were arranged by Nanako Sato, namely, 'Steven's Last Night in Town' by Ben Folds Five, 'Valerie' by Amy Winehouse, 'Bop for Mugsy' by Nanako Sato, and 'Change for the Better' by Oakley Grenell.

In addition, we had the following adults performing with the band: Paul Dearsley (Alto sax - Leader of the After 3 Jazz Course), Dylan Pope (Trombone - Finance Dept), Paul Densem (trumpet - reliever and former HOD Music at Cashmere HS), Nicholas (Baritone sax - student from After 3), and Nanako Sato (trumpet and melodica - School of Music kaiako).

The Big Band Festival is a charitable Trust and is run by volunteers. Please give the festival a donation if you are feeling generous: https://givealittle.co.nz/org/bigbandfest

Lucy's New Single Release

Unstoppable songstress Lucy Gray released her new single 'Not Fair' last month, in October https://found.ee/not-fair-LG. This School of Music Year 13 student will leave school to pursue her music career. If you haven't followed her, please give a ❤ to her Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/lucy.graymusic

Finally, thank you for all the support for the Music Department this year!