Thursday is one of our favourite days of the Ingenium week, as the students get to share the fruits of their hard work, creativity and collaboration in our internal performance platform.

 

 

Our morning began as usual with lessons and rehearsals, and it was so exciting to walk around the Winchester campus and hear how much the students had achieved in only 3 days on the new repertoire. Clare Findlater (ENO, RPO, CBSO) returned for flute lessons, and the orchestra spent some of the morning rehearsing Tchakovsky's Romeo and Juliet which sounded so good on Wednesday that they decided to add it to our concert programme.

 

 

Adam Saunders was working with the choir, rehearsing some of his own beautiful arrangements including James Taylor's Home By Another Way. The pianists spent the morning in private lessons and also their daily forum, where the piano staff were impressed by some really mature and constructive discussion of each other's playing. Meanwhile the saxophones were rehearsing some classical ensemble repertoire by Savari, contrasted by experimenting with extended techniques and circular breathing.

 

 

After lunch the students were divided into two groups; half of the school were working with Adam Saunders on aural skills and learning our whole-school song "Streets of London" for Saturday's concert, while the other half got theatrical with our répétiteur Heather Tomala in a workshop on acting through song.

 

 

Preparations for the evening's performance platform continued throughout the afternoon, and when it finally began after dinner everyone was so excited to see the results of each other's efforts. We enjoyed a richly varied evening of high quality music, including everything from Vivaldi to Christina Aguilera, an original ensemble composition and even a jazz ensemble to finish. The students really threw themselves into their performance and were a wonderfully supportive audience for their friends. A fantastic evening!

 

 

Musicians of the day

 

Thursday

 

Pianos

Lara, for playing the harp part in orchestra on the piano, beautifully and confidently.

 

Choir

Jason, for always being on time, ready to sing and projecting briliantly.

 

Orchestra

Grant, for constant concentration and professionalism, and for demonstrating a real understanding of the music.

 

Saxophones

Dom was really proud of Katarina, for making real progress and always putting in outstanding effort.