The last week of Term 3 saw four of the school's music groups travel to Wellington for a national competition formerly known as WeBO but now known as Musicworks Ensemble Festival Aotearoa (MeFA).

After a nine hour bus drive, a close scrape when we nearly ran out of petrol on the motorway, and a battle with Wellington rush hour traffic, the travelling groups arrived at the Festival with five minutes to spare. Despite the close call, TGC’s Luminosa Armonia Chorale opened the Festival with a wonderful performance as the guest choir at the Gala Concert.

The next four days were packed with workshops with some of the country's best clinicians in their field, performances, concerts and competitive sessions. In between we discovered the best and worst places to eat in Wellington, enjoyed a quick visit to Te Papa and browsed local shops before attending prizegiving on the final night.

After months of hard work, the groups performed really well and were rewarded with a number of recognitions.

Sonic Fusion, the combined TGC/TBC choir came away with a Silver award. The Big Band and LBD's contemporary choir both received Gold awards, and Luminosa Armonia Chorale gained a coveted Platinum award.

An enormous thank you to our wonderful parent helpers, Mrs Robinson and Mrs Crowther for feeding the masses and keeping Miss Geor and Mr Brady supplied with coffee. A huge thank you to local musicians Paul Hoskin, Murray Mason and our accompanist extraordinaire, Lynda Cooney, for travelling all the way down to play in the backing band for the choirs. Thank you also to Mr Brady for his masterful playing of the finger cymbals and Miss Geor for all of her hard work getting our performers to the stage. It was SUCH a fun time! Roll on MeFA 2023!