The third and final week of Ingenium 2016 has begun! This week we have performances, activities and trips galore - and some new arrivals to join in the fun.

 

 

After our concert on Saturday we sadly had to say goodbye to some of our students, but on Sunday we were excited to welcome lots of new faces to join our music making for the final week. Sunday was a relaxed day to recharge after everyone's hard work, so there were games on the field, films in the boarding houses and a hilarious treasure hunt involving smartphone-based challenges. Our new arrivals joined us for team-building games on Sunday evening, and then a good night's sleep set us up to start our final week in fine musical voice.

 

 

This week the amazing Tim Redmond is leading our orchestra, who has given concerts with the Hallé, the Royal Philharmonic, the LSO, BBC Concert, Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras (to name a few), nationally and internationally. Tim began the day with Bizet's Carmen to get everyone focussed before taking on Copland's masterpiece Appalachian Spring and John Adams' The Chairman Dances. The orchestra showed real enthusiasm for the challenging repertoire, and are already getting to grips with the unique sounds of these American greats.

 

Above: Katarina leads the saxophones in a traditional Croatian tune.

 

The saxophones began the day with a session on extended techniques, including slap tonguing, circular breathing, growl tones and multiphonics. As well as getting started with their ensemble repertoire for the week including Bartok's Romanian Dances, the saxes set themselves a truly international challenge for the week - for everyone to teach the group a tune from their native country!

 

 

Leading our choir this week is Greg Hallam, who teaches singing at Wellington College and Christchurch Cathedral School in Oxford, and is Assistant Music Director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain. Greg started the choir off with a varied programme ranging from Eric Whitacre's 'Rakut' from Eric Whitacre's Five Hebrew Love Songs, to a lovely arrangement of 'Dream A Little Dream Of Me'.

 

 

The pianists have been working on the physicality of piano playing today, and had a really productive group discussion on deportment and posture. There were lots of good opinions voiced, and the change in everyone's approach to their playing throughout the day was noticeable.

 

 

The afternoon's musicianship session was divided into a composition workshop, a vocal improvisation workshop with Sophie Grimmer (Trinity Laban), and Heather Tomala leading our instrumentalists in a folk music session with stunning results - even inspiring our pastoral staff in some 'folk' dancing...!

 

 

Tonight we are enjoying a movie night, watching Pitch Perfect 2 and setting high expectations for our talent show tomorrow night!

 

Musicians of the Day

 

Saxophones

Katrine, for excellent sight reading and for teaching the saxophones a beautiful Norwegian song.

 

Pianos

Pablo K, for performing well under pressure in sight reading class, and making excellent comments in a technique session.

 

Orchestra

Romane, for holding the viola section together and being really professional in rehearsal.

 

Choir

Rachel, for singing really well all day, and being so forthcoming in Sophie’s musicianship session.