Assistant Director of Music, Jamal Sutton, welcomes the School back and tells us the latest news from the Music department.
Welcome back everyone and what a buzz there is around Charterhouse! New pupils, new buildings, new initiatives – what an exciting time to be at the school. The excitement continues over in the Music Department where we’re looking forward to a new year full of music making from a range of possibilities.
We’re excited to offer new ensembles at Charterhouse: a Junior Chapel Choir alongside the main Chapel Choir, two Junior String Orchestras alongside Chamber Orchestra and Symphony Orchestra, a junior Wind Band alongside Jazz Band. On top of this, lots of new smaller ensembles are being formed with the aim of accommodating all of our instrumentalists. As well as the pupils, there is certainly excitement amongst our teaching staff and wonderful team of Visiting Music Teachers, all of whom are working tirelessly to facilitate these exciting developments.
Exciting pupil news includes Justin who, over the summer vacation, entered the professional class of the Steinway Open Piano Competition in Hong Kong and, despite being the youngest entrant, has made it through to the final. This is quite some achievement and we wish him all the very best for the final round. We are also thrilled to welcome Claire into the Fourths; Claire joins us from the Yehudi Menuhin School and has been delighting audiences for many years now with her exceptional piano playing. We very much look forward to seeing her perform as part of our Charterhouse Concert Series.
On this very topic, concerts begin this week with Evening Recital I on Thursday, a Staff recital given by Head of Strings Mr Rafael Bolivar, accompanied by piano teacher Mr Daniel Hill. Later events in the term include welcoming Emily Dickens (Voces8, conductor, singer) to adjudicate House Singing, Piano Prizes after Exeat, Evening Recital II and III and then of course Candlelit Carols and all things Christmas towards the end of Quarter. As ever, we’ve a new team of Music Award Holders and we will no doubt see the fruits of their labour very soon.
Happy OQ everyone; there’s certainly lots to look forward to!
