After the hustle and bustle of London on Wednesday, Thursday was a calmer day of high quality, focussed music-making, with its own excitement in the form of our evening performance platform.
Rehearsals continued throughout the morning, and we had some wonderful visiting teachers for independent lessons including flautist Clare Findlater, trumpeter Mike Daniels, and violinist Clare Thompson. With only two full days remaining until our big Festival Showcase on Saturday, everyone was driven to hone their performances as much as possible, so there was a real atmosphere of focus. It was great to see how much the ensembles have pulled together over the course of the three weeks, and to see the pianists supporting one another in their group sessions, offering useful and constructive feedback on each other's playing.
The afternoon's musicianship session offered the chance for lots of students to try their hand at conducting, in a group session led by our orchestral conductor Tim Redmond. Tim decided to run his workshop on the field, which was delightful in the sunshine, and the students enjoyed learning fun and useful exercises to improve the technique and clarity of their conducting, such as practicing with a piece of fruit, to feel the weight on the beat.
While our instrumentalists conducted, vocal expert Sophie Grimmer led our singers in a workshop on improvisation. The session was designed to equip our young singers with techniques to warm up, look after and improve their voices, while also building confidence in improvisation and aural skills. Throughout the session, Sophie's fantastically extrovert personality inspired some brilliant contributions from the students, and they left obviously energised and full of creativity.
Thursday evening was our third and final performance platform of Ingenium 2016 - and what a performance it was! The newly-formed Ingenium Academy String Quartet joined with harpsichord and oboe to perform 'Gabriel's Oboe', and we enjoyed a packed programme of solo and ensemble pieces including lots of duets - piano, clarinet, violin, and even a flute and euphonium duet.
Musicians of the day
Choir
Isabel, for being concientious, leading her section supportively, helping others and always singing beautifully.
Piano
Elisabeth, for being polite, attentive and altogether fantastic in a duet lesson. Thanks for being an asset to the faculty.
Saxophone
Sloane, for being fab in composition musicianship. You brought strong ideas but were open those of other students, and listened and appreciated respectfully. Also for fantastic baritone playing!
Orchestra
Marco, for being an extremely versatile player and switching from classical to rock trumpet with ease. Also for being an asset to the orchestra, supportive to your fellow musicians and helping others.
