Today, we welcomed music students from QES into school. They came in a bus, heavily laden with instruments galore. They spent the morning, with Skiddaw Class, composing atmospheric music to describe, first below, Baba Yaga (a wrinkly, boney witch) and, second below, the Firebird (a magical creature) using the whole range of our wonderful percussion instruments and including violin and piano. In the afternoon, the group performed to the whole school excerpts from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. These were brilliantly introduced with points to listen out for in each piece – perhaps a conversation between the trumpet and the flute turning into an argument towards the end, or count how many times the triangle plays a part. It was interesting to see a great range of instruments playing so well together including a double bass (larger than most of our children) guitars, saxophone and three keyboards along with a wide range of percussion. Thank you so much to all the students and their teachers, Mrs Hartley and Mr Leather, for all your hard work in preparing such a fantastic musical extravaganza for us. Pictures at an Exhibition will be our new assembly music in the autumn term so we can really get to know the pieces in more depth. We’d love to welcome you back again next year!
