Music Highlights

At the end of another very busy and highly successful year for the Music department, we reflect on the achievements of our pupils and highlights of our extracurricular programme. In September, we welcomed Magdalina Vutova as our new Graduate Music Assistant and it has been wonderful to see the positive impact she has already had on our team and the flourishing string department. We have also welcomed several new Visiting Music Teachers, expanding our team to nineteen peripatetic music teachers, catering for the ever-increasing numbers of pupils having individual lessons. We even reached the landmark figure of 1% of QCL pupils learning the tuba – which is quite a feat for any school! Do keep up to date with all that is happening by following our Instagram page @qclmusic.

Concerts and Trips

This has been one of our busiest academic years yet, with five informal concerts, all of which were heavily subscribed and of an impressively high standard. We also hosted one of our favourite annual treats, a Jazz Evening in March, where sixteen of our pupils sang solos and duets with the Harrow School Big Band. As 2023 is our 175th Anniversary, we also had the perfect excuse to explore beautiful external, local venues for our larger concerts, including the Summer Concert at Regent Hall and the ‘Come and Sing’ event which was held at The John McIntosh Arts Centre at the site of the London Oratory School. This year our students also went on several trips to see concerts and other events at some of the major London venues, including the Music Scholars’ trip to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s Christmas Concert at Cadogan Hall and the A-Level Music trip to see ENO’s production of Wagner’s ‘Das Rheingold’ in March.

Brass Tour, October 2022

The Music Department ran its first ever overseas music tour to in October 2022! Fifteen pupils from Brass Ensemble travelled to eastern Belgium for a seven day tour of Hasselt, Brussels, Antwerp, Vervier, Ypres and Wavre. We also popped into the Netherlands to visit Vaals and Valkenburg too! Pupils performed at five outstanding concerts to hundreds of people over the week. Our concert venues ranged from local churches to bandstands in city main squares. The standout moment of the tour was our Brussels Cathedral concert where, for the first time ever, Brass Ensemble performed a one-hour concert entirely made up of classical repertoire. We enjoyed performing in such an immense space with a beautiful acoustic, which was full of applauding audience members! Brass Ensemble are now very much looking forward to their October 2024 tour, where 25 pupils will travel for 8 days in Italy performing in Lake Garda, Padua and Venice!

Masterclasses

One of the newest additions to our full events schedule this year has been a series of masterclasses in which we have welcomed experts to coach and perform alongside our pupils. These have included a singing masterclass with former Queen’s singing teacher Felicity Hamilton, the strings masterclass with Dr George Zacharias (our highly accomplished Head of Music at QCPS), a brass masterclass with international horn soloist Ben Goldscheider and a piano masterclass with the highly talented and dynamic pianist Janneke Brits. We also held our first Music Scholars’ Day in which we worked with all our Music and Performing Arts Scholars. Throughout the day we focused on good wellbeing for musicians, practice and performance techniques and how to harness performing nerves, before finishing with a concert celebrating the talents of the pupils. Our next masterclass will be for woodwind players, taking place in September.

Musical Achievements Beyond the College

At the start of 2023, our Chamber Choir entered the Girls’ Schools Association’s Senior Choir of the Year Competition, and were highly commended for their renditions of ‘Deep River’ and Queen’s ‘Somebody to Love’. This is a significant achievement, especially considering this was our first time entering the competition. Additionally, one of our exceptional A-level musicians has spent the year on the newly established Musical Theatre course at the Royal Academy of Music Junior Department and has recently gained a place at the competitive musical theatre summer course at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Other pupils have also gained places at the various London music college junior departments, including the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. We are especially pleased that our brass players will be performing in a joint concert with the Guildhall Junior Brass Department this summer. It is a joy to see so many of our pupils developing their musicianship beyond the College, forging meaningful connections and gaining further invaluable experience.

Music Department Fundraising

We are proud to have raised record amounts to support excellent charitable causes over this academic year. For instance, we raised £3,731.04 at our ‘Top of the Pops: Come and Sing’ event in February with all proceeds going to the Queen’s Bursary Fund and Guide Dogs UK; we even raised enough to participate in the ‘Name a Puppy’ scheme at Guide Dogs – watch this space for puppy name updates! Our Brass Ensemble also raised over £500 for various charities with their Christmas carolling on Oxford Street. It is such a pleasure to know that our pupils are seeing first-hand the positive impact their music-making can have on others and we greatly look forward to finding new opportunities for them to do so again in the next academic year.