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Monday 17 December 2018

Wonderful Brass Players

Our Brass players gave us a real treat by playing Jingle Bells during the KS1 Winter Concert as well as at the start of the three KS2 shows. They are making brilliant progress with their teacher, Mr Hewins.

Huge well done to Teya, Oscar, Trevarn, Belle, Huseiyn and Nylah. 
Here are some recordings from their last lesson for you to hear how they are getting on:

Wednesday 17 October 2018

Orchestra players visit queensbridge!

12th October 2018

Children in Y3 were treated to a visit by many orchestral players affiliated with the London Symphony Orchestra. We learnt some rhythms with the players and used them to create our own class compositions. At the end of the session, we asked many questions and learnt more about all of the instruments. There were flutes, violins, violas, cellos, double basses, bassoons, clarinets, French horns, percussion instruments and more! Thank you LSO!

The original rhythms were based on the piece which the LSO will play when we go to see the Limboland concert in November. It is called Matachins by Peter Warlock. In the story it will be used for the witch's dance at the wedding. You can listen to the whole piece:

Wednesday 26 September 2018

Summer Music Concert 2018

11th July 2018
Clips from the Summer Music Concert in the hall in July!






Y5 Voyager Concert with the London Symphony Orchestra

9th July 2018
 

Y5 loved visiting the Barbican Concert Hall to enjoy a show by the London Symphony Orchestra. The show took us on a journey into space, where we listened to music that is recorded on the Golden Record - a disc sent into space with the Voyager II spacecraft in 1977. Hearing and discussing the music helped us to understand why music is important to humans, and how it works. Here are some of our responses to the event:

 

 

 

 

 
 

Before going to the concert, we listened to the beginning of Beethoven's 5th Symphony and to a piece called The Unanswered Question, by Charles Ives. We created our own versions of both pieces. Here's a recording of The Unanswered Question, and underneath some of our pictures to show the different layers of sound that we heard the first time we listened to it. Our drawings helped us to make our own graphic scores like this one:  


 



The original piece:

This is our remix of Beethoven's 5th:






Y1 Carnival of the Animals concert with the London Symphony Orchestra

6th July 2018


 

Wow! Our Year 1 children were so excited to sit in the massive Barbican Hall as part of a big audience at the London Symphony Orchestra Concert. The Orchestra played pieces from The Carnival of the Animals by French composer Camille Saint-Saens. We also heard pieces from Malcolm Arnold's less well known Carnival of the Animals. The funniest bit was when the orchestra played the Can-Can from the Tortoise music, but at full speed. All of the children in the hall were bouncing up and down on their chairs. Read our write-ups below to find out more.

 

 

 

You can also listen to the whole of the Carnival of the Animals online:

Recording our Road Safety Song

July 2018
Children in Turquoise Class have been helping the Junior Road Safety Officers, Lucy and Gabriel, to compose and record a song to help teach small children about crossing the road safely. Thanks also to all of the reception children who helped with the singing and performing. 

We are hoping to share the song more widely with Hackney Schools, and perhaps it will be part of the EYFS Singing Festival next summer! Please share the video with your friends who have or work with young children.

In case you missed it:



 



Wednesday 18 July 2018

Y4 Emerald Class on the Barbican Stage

5th July 2018

Emerald Class starred in a very special concert with members of the London Symphony Orchestra this week. We invented our own animal called the Hedgodile and made music to describe how it sounds and moves, and what it does. 



At the event, the children were very professional and performed beautifully and we had lovely feedback from the LSO about how well they all knew what they were doing. It was great to hear other schools and how different their animals and sounds were. It was also really exciting to be sitting just in front of the LSO players to hear those instruments up close. They played other music from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens. Pink Class came along to support Emerald Class, and all of the children sang along with the song Searching for Mosquito. Well done. 


 


 
 
 

 

All photos by Doug Peters

Here is a recording of the full piece recorded in class the day before the show:



Pink Class composed music for a Jellyconda. Here's our first try at a full performance after a shorter session in school:



Ruby Class also completed this project in school, composing music for a Unicat!