Musicians from the Upper Prep performed to an audience of parents, siblings, friends and teachers on Thursday 6th November in the first of this year’s Prep School concerts. The programme was wonderfully varied, with an excellent selection of short pieces. We began with a performance of Les Bouffons by the recorder ensemble, with the concert closing an hour later to The Drunken Sailor by the violin group. In between we’d heard many children perform, including both Maddy and Bryony on the harp, Katya on the cornet and Rachel’s Edelweiss on the trombone.

The music department closed the first half term with a concert of chamber music featuring AS and GCSE pupils as well as music scholars. Parents and staff enjoyed a varied programme with music spanning four centuries on a variety of instruments. Sarah impressed with a performance of her own composition for piano and we look forward to hearing more from Les Six – a newly formed vocal group who gave a beautiful rendition of ‘The Long and Winding Road’.

On a glorious sunny Friday pupils in the second form visited the Horniman museum in London for a day of art and music activities. Girls observed the large collection of diverse music instruments from all over the world in the music gallery and sketched ideas for their art project. The hands-on lecture demonstration of world music instruments proved very popular, particularly when the girls could try out all the instruments. Some staff felt they needed earplugs! Lunch was enjoyed outside in the beautiful gardens followed by a visit to the Indian gallery for an exhibition of Indian instruments.

On Thursday 18th September, 17 lucky pupils went to see the opera ‘Falstaff’ at  Grange Park. We had three teachers with us: Mr Berry, Ms Seth-Smith and Mrs Lowman.

When we walked in, the sensation was indescribable. There were three big chandeliers made out of what seemed to be red and white cloth with tiny fairy lights and there were lights all the way round the room. There was enough time to settle down and find out who was playing who. Next came a great surprise – the chandeliers floated up on their strings! There was a buzz of excitement in the air as the lights went out and the director walked on. She told us all about who wrote the music (Verdi) and all about the sur-titles. These were little words or sentences that told us what was going on and being said (because the opera was sung in Italian). Each act lasted about 50 minutes and by the interval there was plenty to talk about. Both the singing and acting were fabulous and it was reasonably easy to understand. The singing was so good that even Maddy, our junior opera singer, would only be half as good as them! Falstaff had such a good voice you would have thought he never spoke a word, however my favourite person was Meg.