Christmas Show Extravaganza!

Well - what a fantastic end to the term. ALL of our Queensbridge Children were involved in a school show, from Reception's nativity play, to the winter concert with Years 1, 2 and 3, arriving finally at the KS2 production of Peter Pan. 

The children all met new challenges: memorising script and lyrics - sometimes in other languages, playing instruments in songs, practising dance routines, and overcoming performance nerves to really shine. Thank you for your hard work, Queensbridge. We are so proud of you all. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, take a seat, grab a cuppa and enjoy the shows from the comfort of your own home...

Thanks to Sapphire Class for some feedback about being part of a show:

What did you enjoy? 

"The effort put in by everyone!"

"When my family joined in at the end."

"Having our own individual costumes - everyone taking part and included."

"The choice of songs! Everyone enjoyed it!"

"The costumes and the mermaids especially!"

"Everyone working as a team to get things ready."

"The funny lines!"

"The backdrop and props were amazing."

What was your favourite part?

"The Pirate song!!!"

"The Lost boys song and Daisy's role as Smee."

"The final scene."

What did you learn by taking part? 

Collaboration! Growing confidence; learning all the lines and remembering them; everyone tried their hardest; no matter how many lines you have you can still be a great character and have fun; putting in effort pays off.

Is there anything you would do differently next time?

"My advice to Year 5 - try your hardest - listen!"

"Think about your character's background."

"Be sensible in rehearsals and respect Osnat/Michelle."

Happy Christmas from Junior Choir

The Junior Choir have been learning some Christmas songs and we just wanted to share this one with you. Hope you like their energy and super singing. 

Have a wonderful Christmas everybody!

Choir Exchange

We welcomed Jubilee School Performance Choir to our school today, to kickstart our new choir exchange between the two schools. Queensbridge Junior Choir members were excellent hosts and enjoyed singing with new friends. Both choirs shared a warm up song and then sang each other a short piece. 
Jubilee Choir performed 'Long Way Home' and our choir had the following feedback:

"Everyone was singing in time together."

"I liked the rap"

"I liked how you could hear all of the words."

"The soloist was really confident and sang beautifully."

"What a great song."

Next, Queensbridge performed two contrasting songs from their recent concert with the Classical Roadshow - 'It's the London Life' and 'The Fire Burnt Fiercely'. Jubilee children and adults also had some lovely comments about our singing:

"The singing was really clean and you could hear every words."

"I liked how well they managed the different tempos of the songs."

"I liked the way they sang a big range of notes, from high to low."

"The songs had some impressive vocabulary!"

Choir members also had a chance to talk and hear about how music works in the other school. We're looking forward to visiting Jubilee School soon, and would love to take Chamber Choir too!

Steel Pan Workshops

Queensbridge received a visit from the Steel Pan Agency today, along with their huge set of Steel Pans. We learnt that steel pans are tuned percussion instruments that come from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. They were invented in the 1930s, after Second World War soldiers left huge oil drums on the beaches. The music developed from Tamboo Bamboo Bands. We enjoyed the assembly performance and singing along with the music. Then Year 3 and 4 children had the chance to play the pans in workshops. Here are some pictures and video. Do you know anyone that plays steel pans? 

 

Fire! Fire! with the Classical Roadshow

52 wonderful members of Junior Choir travelled to the Classical Roadshow today at the Milton Court Concert Hall near the Barbican. We were treated to a retelling of the Great Fire of London, using lots of evidence from the diary of Samuel Pepys. The London Mozart Players were the fantastic orchestra who played the entrie show, and we sang along heartily with all of the audience participation songs. Here are some clips, and some feedback from choir members. 
Thanks to all of the staff who supported the trip and to the parents that came to watch!

"I enjoyed it because it was fun to sing. As a choir we sounded amazing. I liked the acting of the main characters. It made it seem like it was coming back to life. The stage choir knew what they were doing and didn’t forget anything."

"I liked how they made it into a play. When the lights turned on we knew that we were supposed to sing and when the lights turned off, they carried on with the play."

"I liked the bright colours of the lights. When the fire was coming they turned red, and when there was water they turned blue."

"I loved the expressions of the actors. When she saw the fire, Jane was screaming and singing at the same time."

"Our parents came to listen to the music and the singing."

 "I liked how they introduced us to some instruments like the bass clarinet, the Cor Anglais, and the harpsichord."

 "I liked how the parents were singing along."

"The conductor was really funny."

Peace At Last - Opera in the Hall

What a treat for Reception and Nursery Children... Last Wednesday, Opera Up Close brought their production of Peace At Last to Queensbridge School. We loved seeing the bears from this famous picture book come to life, and to hear them singing about going to bed. The singers took on different roles to make all of the noises that bother Mr Bear as he tries to get to sleep.. first in the bedrooms, then downstairs, then in the garden, and finally in the car. 
The singers were accompanied by musicians playing the harp and the clarinet and bass clarinet. It was so interesting to see and hear these instruments up close. You can enjoy some clips from the show below. 

You can hear the full story here:

Wonderful Summer Concert

Queensbridge kids performed tremendously in a sweltering hall on Monday 15th March. The concert featured the Chamber Choir, Junior Choir and Orchestra, as well as various groups taught by visiting instrumental teachers: African drummers, brass ensemble, woodwind groups and our cellists. See the videos below for some highlights (we haven't been able to include all of the groups due to lack of photo permissions)

George, Zack and Tom rehearsed themselves as a trio over a few weeks in the summer term. Here they are performing their arrangement of Attitude by Nicholas Scott-Burt, and their own composition, 21st Century. Well done boys - we hope to see you playing with your secondary school groups and other groups in the future!

Instrumental Lessons in September

The school instruments are sorted, fixed and ready for lessons to restart in September. Thank you to all of the children who remembered to bring them in, or who made an agreement with Mrs Woolfenden to keep their instrument for some holiday practice. 

We have some spaces for lessons coming up this September. Please speak to the office or Mrs Woolfenden if you child is interested in having lessons. We can currently offer lessons to children from Year 3 up, but for some woodwind instruments, children must wait until Year 4, or until their hands are large enough.  

We currently host lessons in violin, cello, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, saxophone, flute, guitar, percussion (kit, orchestral or African drumming). We are looking into offering piano lessons. Lessons are generally £40 per half term, and Queensbridge offers financial help for lessons for those children on Free School Meals. 
See the instrument lessons page for more information.

If your child has been having instrumental lessons but no longer wants to continue with and you have agreed to this, please send a note/email to that effect in September. 

Goodbye Year 6 - Thank you for the music!

Wow - Year 6 put on a stunning Leavers' Show today. The singing was truly astounding. What a sound. You can listen to the audio here:

Year 6: You are so musical and we will miss you at Queensbridge. We hope you will keep on singing, playing and dancing at secondary school.

Queensbridge percussionists join the Grand Union Orchestra

We were fortunate enough to take part in a truly special concert last Thursday, 27th June. Some of our Year 3 and Year 6 children took part in A World Odyssey performance with the Grand Union Orchestra and the Hackney Training Orchestra and Youth Orchestra. We were also joined by drumming and steel pan groups from other Hackney schools. What an experience to play with so many other musicians! We'll never forget it. 
It was also fantastic to see Tom in Year 6 playing double bass with the Hackney Training Orchestra for the World Odyssey and George (Y6) and Oscar (Y5) playing piano and trombone respectively with the Classical Meets Jazz Ensemble, in their own version of Sheherezade by Rimsky-Korsakov.

 

Here's a clip of Claude teaching us the Homecoming Song from South Africa for the first time back in May. Do you think we made good progress?

Lions in the Round Chapel

Well done to the Queensbridge Orchestra. The players prowled into the Round Chapel on Wednesday 26th June and gave a musical and acomplished performance of the Royal March of the Lions by Camille Saint-Saens (arranged by us and including our remix version of the piece). They followed this with a version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Solomon Linda. Congratulations to all of the players and thanks to all of the teachers and parents that came along to support us. You can see the performances here:

Reception singing superstars

Wow - Reception Green and Reception Red truly blew us away at the Hackney Singing Festival on Friday 21st June. Their wonderful singing filled the space. They knew all of the words and sang with so much style. Well done. Shout out to all of the Reception staff who were singing and dancing along with the children and sharing a joy of music. We hope you'll keep singing those songs at home. 

Y5 sing their hearts out

Our wonderful Year 5 cohort raised the roof at the Round Chapel on Wednesday 19th June. Thank you Year 5 for all of your hard work in learning the melodies, the lyrics, and the harmony parts for all of the songs. Which ones were your favourite to sing? Did you enjoy singing with the band?

Here are some pictures and clips for you to enjoy!

 

 

Superstar George

George in Year 6 was a special guest at the Infant Singing Festival at the Round Chapel yesterday. He impressed all of the Y1 and 2 children with a super cool and very musical performance of his Grade 5 piece Film Noir. Here he is practising at school. What a superstar!

Y2 storm the Round Chapel

A huge congratulations to all of the children in Year 2 for their wonderful singing at the Round Chapel this morning. We loved hearing you sing with all of those other schoolchildren. Which were your favourite songs to join in with? Thanks to all of the parents who came along. We'd love to hear your feedback via comments below. 

Summer Term Music Events

We have an extremely musical summer coming up at Queensbridge. Please put the dates below in your diaries and do come along and support us with our singing and playing if you can. Please look out for letter about any trips and visits, and return your permission slips promptly!

We were lucky to get tickets to see the London Symphony Orchestra school concerts this term. Year 6 will be getting creative and will hopefully be inspired by What Do You Do With an Idea? - composed by Paul Rissmann and based on the book by Kobi Yamada. They will be visiting the Barbican concert hall on Monday 10th June. Year 1 are taking part in the Hairy Maclary concert on Monday 17th June.

We are of course taking part in the Hackney Singing and instrumental Festivals as usual, with three full yeargroups visiting the Round Chapel for the following performances:

Tues 18th June, 10.45am: Year 2 at Infant Singing Festival
Weds 19th June, 4pm: Year 5 at Junior Singing Festival
Fri 21st June, 2pm: Reception classes at the EYFS Singing Festival
Thurs 26th June, 4pm: Queensbridge Orchestra at the Instrumental Festival. 

Year 3 are taking part in a project with the Grand Union Orchestra. They will have two in-school workshops with members of the orchestra during May and June. Then we hope that many of the children will be able to join us for the final performance in the Round Chapel on Thursday 27th June, along with members of our percussion group. These children will also need to take part in a full rehearsal after school on Tuesday 4th June. 

Hopefully we'll round off the term with a concert in school and a chance for the groups to share all of their hard work. See you there!

Voices around the World and a wonderful Spring Concert

Congratulations to our wonderful Junior choir for their recording of What Kind of World Are We Trying To Make? as part of the Voices around the World project. As well as sending vocal recordings to be added to a worldwide choir of singers for the final release, we made our own school version of the whole song. They are superstars. 

Thanks to parents Ellen, Suzie and Will for choreographing, filming and editing this wonderful video:

After the Easter holidays, keep an eye out for a homework challenge. The choir will be inviting ALL Queensbridge families to make a pledge to help the environment and help us to find a better way. 

Massive congratulations as well to all of our talented and committed singers and musicians who took part in the Spring Concert at school today. Hopefully we will be able to share some clips soon. It was a joy to hear so much music going on and to hear the progress being made by different students. Well done to you all for your hard work and focus to get to this stage. And thanks to the parents who came to watch and listen. 

We are looking forward to more exciting projects next term. Watch this space...

Sing Up Day 2019

We are looking forward to taking part in Sing Up Day on Wednesday 13th March. All of the children in school are busy learning the pop ballad One Moment, One People as the official Sing Up Day song. It's all about coming together as a community with one voice. We hope you will sing along at home too!

Christmas Shows

What a joy to share these films of all of the children at Queensbridge performing in their Christmas shows. You are all AMAZING. Wonderful School.... Beautiful Children!

EYFS Nativity:

KS1 Winter Concert

and not 1, not 2, but 3 different casts performing Alice in Wonderland:

A huge 'thank you' to everyone involved in making these films. 

Y6 Back to School Blues

The pupils in Year 6 are going to be learning about Blues music this term. They were mostly really excited to come back to school after the Christmas holidays, but the first day back can also be a little hard. What better way to deal with is than singing the Blues?

Here are some verses created by the whole class together in just 20 minutes...



The lyrics (song words) are usually the starting point for a blues song. We learnt that the first line of three is often repeated. The 12-bar blues divide into three lines, with four bars each. That's why we wrote three lines for our lyrics. 

CRYSTAL:
Back to school... Gotta get up outa bed.
Back to school... Gotta get up outa bed.
Boooohooooo... I'm such a sleepyhead!

SAPPHIRE:
Woke up this morning feeling angry and sad.
Woke up this morning feeling angry and sad.
Got to get to school, or my teacher will be mad...