MUSIC
Senior School Music at St Dunstan’s is in an incredibly exciting position despite the disruptions of the past 18 months. Amid the challenges, we have sustained practical music-making while innovating our offering to ensure that there is a genuinely unique, exciting and inclusive musical identity at the College. Against a national picture where music education and activity has suffered tremendously, at St Dunstan’s we have prioritised musical activity amid the restrictions and are all the richer for it. Though public performances have not been as plentiful as normal due to the restrictions, our ensembles and performers have many successes to celebrate. The use of an outdoor Marquee from September allowed us to continue our cross-bubble groups within the distancing requirements. Furthermore, the creation of year group choirs and orchestras in Years 7 and 8 has seen musical participation in these year groups really thrive. Notably, we were delighted to offer new opportunities in Music Technology Forder clubs, a Composition club and Music Appreciation Club that allowed those producers, composers and critical listeners the opportunity to contribute to our Forder programme. Michaelmas term culminated in the livestreamed Christmas service from St Augustine’s Church in December. Our slimmed-down Chapel Choir performed advanced repertoire with great musicality and balance to the cameras; this group is growing in maturity and we look forward to many public performances and evensongs in the future!
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S T D U N S TA N ’ S C O L L EG E
Teaching Music remotely brings real challenges, but Lent term was remarkable for its solutions to these challenges, and the very real appetite from our students to keep practising and performing while at home. There was some outstanding composition work created, not only by our exam students in Years 11 and 13, but by KS3 through their Soundtrap DAW subscriptions. These efforts culminated in a series of virtual concerts that ran weekly across the term, including recitals from Year 7, Year 8, our Scholars and Exhibitioners and recordings of student compositions. Throughout these challenging months, it was really clear how essential Music is to our young people through the dedication and passion of their contributions. Trinity term was greeted with excitement as we moved into our fantastic new facilities. The new department space effectively triples the area available for musical activities for our students, and because of this we were able to welcome back all our cross-bubble ensembles. We look forward to further optimisation of the space over the summer which will
