Our annual Spotlight on Strings and Orchestra’s concert aims to showcase the musical abilities of all our strings pupils from our beginners in the Year 2 strings class up to our most senior String Ensemble and this year was no exception.

The Concert Orchestra opened the evening with a rousing performance of Taiko by Windham before the Year 2 class demonstrated how they develop their understanding of notes and bowing as well as performing the first two of their four pieces. Following this, the String Ensemble inspired the young Year 2s with where they could aspire to be in a few years, with Mrs Burns and soloist Daniel Cheung demonstrating how Vivaldi describes a winter walk through music in ‘Winter’ from The Four Seasons. It was then the Year 3 Lower Strings turn to shine, with cellos and double basses showing off the progress in the last year on the Y3 String Scheme.

Alongside our Year 2 class, we run a parents’ class to encourage both parent and child to learn together and so then perhaps the most nervous performers, the parents from this class, had a chance to show off to their children what they had been learning, to an enthusiastic reception. To end the first half of the concert The Year 2 strings class were then back on again with everyone from Year 13 down on the stage including the parents, joining in with an encore performance of Katie’s Waltz, with most of the 180+ performers reliving their own Year 2 String Scheme experience.

After a short break, the harp ensemble first played a beautiful rendition of Trolls and Fairy Ring, both by Cater, before the two most senior harpists were joined by one of our senior string quartet to showcase the gorgeous sound of the harp and the excellent accompanying skills of the quartet.

The evening then progressed through increasingly experienced ensembles, with the huge Year 3 violins followed by the Young Strings group who showed us their spiccato and legato bow work, then Prep Orchestra, rounded off by the Concert Orchestra with a medley of Western film tunes, all showing how their skill, hard work and determination has paid off.

This concert is always a lovely celebration of our pupils’ love of stringed instruments, and it is wonderful to watch the sense of community and evident enjoyment of playing together and for their parents and friends.

The full concert can be viewed on our YouTube channel here