Sadly, we can’t give you the vibrant welcome at our upcoming Christmas Concert as we usually would, but hopefully we can introduce ourselves well enough in the next few words.

Our wonderful music teachers Mr Dingley, Miss Edwards, Mrs Melidis and Mr Foxon build the foundations on which the music department stands; their enthusiasm and commitment never faulters, even after hearing the same Christmas carol for the tenth time in an hour! Leah is the lead student for our music department, and Zoe and Simeon are her deputies! The other students you may see with the Music Ambassador badges make up the rest of the music department, each dedicated to a certain area of the orchestra or choir. We are all so excited to be part of such an incredible team in schools where musical talent is exceptional, and many students would gladly call themselves music nerds! 

For those of you who have not yet experienced an orchestra rehearsal, I thought I would attempt to describe a typical Wednesday afternoon (pre-covid) for you, although I cannot guarantee that I will do the brilliant and bristling musical energy justice:

Walking in, clutching your precious instrument you immediately noticed the lack of orderly and neat rows of chairs; instead, the room has transformed into a miniature concert hall which barely manages to squeeze in the abundance of violins, flutes, clarinets and cellos that are already filling up the space. Everyone is desperately trying to multitask: eating lunch whilst unpacking an instrument, opening up a music stand and frantically trying to avoid spilling their lunch all over the music sheets. Even though the room seems full to bursting, somehow Mr Dingley manages to fit in another violin desk, whilst announcing over the bustling chatter and contagious giggling that “Rehearsal starts in five minutes”. 

Whilst squeezing between a tuba a double bass, you reach your desk and unpack your instrument, whilst attempting to grab a few bites of lunch. Thankfully, the music is unpacked, and the stand unfolded by the time Mr Dingley announces: “Ok, we’re going to start now”. Havoc breaks out as the late arrivals scramble to reach their seats in time, just as Mr Dingley strikes the first four beats. Nervously, you grasp your instrument, staring down at the unfamiliar black notes printed across the page – sight-reading had never been your strong point. But, when you look up again, you see your desk partner smiling reassuringly over to you before playing the first note with you in unison. A cacophony of sounds explodes around you, vibrating and echoing of the walls in every direction: beautiful music played with love and passion, perhaps laced with a few wrong notes here and there, but incredible none the less! But the best part about it all? That you were part of this incredible team, contributing to this spectacular world of sound just as much as the friends around you. One thing was for sure – this was a team that valued every player!

Hopefully, you can now understand a little more about our department and the wonderful joy it brings to so many at school, but sadly we won’t be meeting up in person at the moment. However, the department are using the wonderful world of technology to make sure that we all keep practising our Christmas pieces, and each person will be recording their performance to create a collage of sound for you all to enjoy at Christmas!

We hope that this finds you well, and that the allegory will soon become reality!