JEM, SMP, and Mrs Libeau-Dow's Recorder Ensemble perform at 2021's ukulele, marimba, and recorder festival

On 16th June, Westburn performed alongside 35 other local primary schools in 2021’s “Strum Strike and Blow” Festival at the Horncastle Arena. It was a long, but very fun day of music making followed by a family friendly evening concert. In preparation for the festival, the children learned many pieces to play and sing, including Glitter by Bene, Starship Lullaby by Tiki Taane, The Seagull Song by Michel Bush, and Strumshine by Michael Bell. It was so much fun playing our instruments together and singing along with so many other children and adults including Michel who led the children in singing her hilarious song about seagulls! Special guests KABOOM percussion, a duo from Australia wowed us all with their amazing performance on their “Bottlephone” an instrument made out of recycled bottles pumped up with air.

Schools are invited to prepare their own piece to perform at “Strum, Strike and Blow”, so Westburn took this opportunity to invite composer Dr Patrick Shepherd (who as president of the Specialist Music Programme is well known to us at Westburn) to compose a piece for the participating children to perform together. Dr Shepherd took this suggestion further, coming in to spend time with the children in their classes and encouraging them to experiment with musical ideas on our school's instruments. The children then notated their ideas and Dr Shepherd took these away with him, returning in a few weeks with the beginnings of a piece that he had put together using the children’s work! The JEM, SMP, and Recorder Ensemble classes spent time rehearsing the piece with Dr Shepherd regularly visiting during these classes to teach the children about the Dorain mode and encourage them to improvise using it.

Dr Shepherd writes of his experience, “Durian Blues started off life as “Dorian Blues” as it is based around a repetitive pattern using the Dorian scale or mode. However, the children thought the word was durian, the delicious but rather smelly fruit from Asia, so the piece was given its new name! Durian Blues allows for the players to improvise using the notes they already have in their part and features solo opportunities for both recorder players and percussionists.”

The children thoroughly enjoyed the process and learned much from watching how Dr Shepherd organised their musical ideas. Performing “Dorian Blues'' was challenging, especially when managing the improvisation section! We performed “Dorian Blues” both at the day event and at the evening concert in front of a large audience made up of 1000s of children and their families. Samuel Hu’s stunning recorder solo was a particular highlight!

Thanks go to Mrs Frances McNeill and our parents who helped on the day, to Emma Cullen and the Christchurch School of Music for assistance in transporting our large instruments to and from the Horncastle Arena, to Judith Bell, Celia Stewart, Kate Husband from Music Education Canterbury and Christchurch Civic Music Council for making this experience possible, to Dr Shepherd for his hours of work at home and on site creating the special “Dorian Blues” for our children, and to Mrs Libeau-Dow for her amazing work with the recorder students, and to the students who performed and participated so beautifully in this year’s event.