Music
2002
The vocal ensemble has never been as large as its 16 member line up for this year. Its repertoire was essentially Gospel and Spiritual in nature. The work shop with Tony Backhouse from Sydney and the two stunning performances; one at the Scotch College Jazz night as a support act for Don Burrows, and the other in St Joseph’s church Subiaco were the year highlights. For most of the smaller ensembles 2002 was a less hectic year than last but still produced quality performances from the guitar ensemble, the middle school string ensemble, the percussion groups (who earned many honourable mentions in the CSPAF), and the newly formed rock band built an extensive repertoire of songs. Academically there were two new prizes introduced to the music area. The Year 12 TEE music prize was renamed the Heng Cheong Memorial Prize. Heng was without doubt one of the most talented musicians at the college. Heng was an artist at the piano, a fine violinist and a copious arranger and composer of music. His sudden death in term 1 was a shock to the whole Trinity community but hit the music department very hard. He left some very big shoes to fill in both the orchestra and senior string ensemble. The Friends of Music, who have become an extremely active parent group over the last 18 months, have also contributed a prize for the most outstanding contribution to music at the college. The inaugural recipient was Julian Misso. The highlight of the year for the music department was the Trinity Showcase Concert. This concert featured current and past music staff and Old Boy musicians in a night that ranged from classical to jazz and old boys form 1948 to 2001. This night was a time not only to enjoy the music but also to appreciate the large number and quality of musicians who have passed through Trinity over several decades. The FOM are to be congratulated on this initiative and all who participated thanked heartily.
began with some new faces in the department. Mr Michael McGolderick took up the reigns while I was on long service leave and Ms Ruth Bott was very capably taking on middle school and primary music activities while Mrs Tonya Lamborn was on maternity leave. I am very happy to say that Ms Bott will be continuing in the department in 2003 and also that Mrs Lamborn will be returning. 2002 was a year when the younger bands, Swing band II and the Middle School Band, came a long way. Many keen young players worked hard and produced very credible results. For the Senior Concert Band three conductors graced the podium. Mr Fred Rooke resigned after several years of fine music making but his very capable successors in Mr Mark Thomas and Mr Burhan Guner have kept the standard to where Mr Rooke had brought it in the band’s recent history. Along with the orchestra and the senior string ensemble, the combining of instrumental groups with Mercedes College has reaped great musical benefits and much comradery between the students of both schools. The orchestra’s performance of the Carmen Suite showed the strings at their best and the versatility and strength of the senior string ensemble was again obvious this year. For Alex Majewski who has been one of the finest violinists at the college in recent years this was the end of an era. A new look Chorale with many young members improved significantly over the first half of the year to return to the quality of the 2001 touring group and provided some very memorable performances of works by Pergolesi, Australian composer Stephen Leek, Z Randall Stroope, Stephen Hatfield and others. The liaison with Presbyterian Ladies’ college continues as strong as ever and the combined choirs of Trinity and Mercedes once again took off the Benedictine Community award for Christian music at the Catholic schools performing arts festival.
Dr Robert Braham Director of Music
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