Singing Schools Festival - Year 4 concerts - March 2025Over three days on 17th - 19th March, 450 Year 4 children came together to perform at our Singing Schools Festival. Mrs Trevorrow had worked with all fourteen schools over the previous eight weeks, running vocal workshops and teaching them all the five songs that they would eventually perform together.
The theme for this year's concert was 'Our World' and the songs either celebrated a variety of cultures and countries from around the world, or had the theme of 'working together' and 'supporting each other'. Songs included an Indian Celebration song celebrating the festival of Divali (sung in Hindii), a Ukrainian spring folk song (sung in Ukrainian) and a celebratory traditional wedding song from Zimbabwe. They also sang the traditional English folk song 'Roll the Old Chariot Along (complete with audience participation in three part harmony!) and the song 'This is Our World', which included some brilliant harmony and part singing! In addition to these songs, each school performed their own solo song of their own choice. Each night was performed to a packed-out theatre and the children all performed and conducted themselves brilliantly. Well done to all involved! |
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Thomas Hardye Singers and Nightingales Middle Schools Choir perform Faure's Requiem - March 2025On Friday 21st March, TH Singers and Nightingales Choir joined together for a concert of French music at the United Church in Dorchester, which included a magnificent performance of Faure's Requiem. The Nightingales choir performed a french piece from the film 'Les Choristes' brilliantly (off by heart, with fantastic French pronunciation!) and then joined the TH Singers for the end of the Requiem. In addition to these vocal pieces, several students from Thomas Hardye and St Osmund's Middle School performed solos and duets, including Ella Trevorrow (year 8) who played The Swan on cello and Sophie Taibjee (year 10) who played Debussy's First Arabesque on piano. The church was completely full and feedback from the audience was superb. A fantastic evening of beautiful music!
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Dorset for Youth Concert with Dorset Chamber Orchestra - March 2025On 15th March, Thomas Hardye String Ensemble and Dorchester Children's Orchestra, took part in a concert with Dorset Chamber Orchestra, which also featured Martine Clunes narrating 'Peter and the Wolf'!
The DCO joined the orchestra for Haydn's Toy Symphony. Most of the children played the 'toy' parts, but some joined with string players. Whilst the toy parts are not difficult from a notes perspective, counting the rests and knowing when to come in is quite tricky! All of the children played brilliantly, confidently playing their parts correctly and really adding a sense fo joy to the performance. The TH Strings played in the Haydn, but also joined with the orchestra for the world premier of a piece that has recently been written by Thomas Hardye year 12 student, Freya Murray. To hear Freya's piece played by a semi-professional orchestra was fantastic. You can hear Freya's piece played again at the Thomas Hardye Spring Concert on 3rd April. Well done to all involved! |
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Christmas Concert 2024On 4th December, around 180 students from across the schools took part in our annual Christmas concerts. You can see some video snippets of the concert on our media page.
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Gabrieli Roar Workshop and PerformanceOn 9th December, the over 90 students from the three middle schools and Thomas Hardye School, travelled to Exeter Cathedral to perform in a massed concert as part of a project called Gabrieli Roar. This project involved young people coming together to perform a selection of Christmas pieces from the 18th Century accompanied by professional singers and instrumentalists form the esteemed Gabrieli Consort. To sing in Exeter Cathedral was an amazing experience and the feedback from parents was that the overall sound was fantastic. It was a very long day, but all of the students performed brilliantly. We hope to work with the Gabrieli Consort again in the future.
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D-Day Gospel PerformanceOn 6th June, over 100 children from across five of the Wessex MAT schools took part in a Gospel choir performance as part of the town's D-Day Commemorations. They performed three songs: This Little Light of Mine, Shackles and We Shall Overcome. It was a joy to behold! youtu.be/MovROlPMtH8
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Gospel WorkshopOn 21st May, 150 students from Thomas Hardye School, St Osmund's Middle School, Dorchester Middle School, St Mary's Middle School and Dorset Studio School joined together for a Gospel workshop with the Soul Sanctuary Gospel Workshop. The workshop was a joint venture with Dorchester Town Council and Dorchester Arts and will feed into the town's D-Day commemorations on 6th June. It was wonderful to hear such brilliant harmony singing!
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Wessex Arts Fest 2024On 18th May, musicians from across the area came together to perform and create music, drama and dance at the Wessex Arts Fest. People young and old got involved in a whole host of activities. The day included performances from eight student ensembles by children from age 6-18, two drama performances, Drumming workshops, Big Sing workshop, SEND music session, Come and Try instrument sessions, Music Tech drop-in sessions, Pre-school music sessions, Massed Scratch Orchestra (that we put together in 20 mins!), String Folk Band workshop, Massed flute choir, Solo performances, Rock Bands, Barn Dance. It was a joyous day. To see a summary video, click here: https://youtu.be/G43-mBMOPAU
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Instrumental Roadshow tours First SchoolsDuring the Summer term 2024, four musicians from Wessex Schools Music are touring all 14 first/primary schools with the Wessex Instrumental Roadshow. The roadshow provides a quick introduction to a variety of instruments, playing in a range of styles. Over the term, we will have performed to around 2500 chlidren and hopefully inspired a few new budding musicians!
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Fundraising Concert for Julia's House HospiceOn 17th March, 40 students took part in a concert in United Church to raise funds for Julia’s House Hospice. The Stringalings and Bandemonium both performed brilliantly. In addition, ten talented soloists from the middle schools and the Thomas Hardye School performed. This was a great opportunity for the younger students to hear some of our more advanced students playing solos and I hope it was inspiring for them. Well done to everyone who took part!
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Nightingales and Hardyes join with Dorchester Choral SocietyOn 16th March, around 20 students from the middle schools and Thomas Hardye joined forces with the Dorchester Choral Society for a concert in St Mary’s Church. The students performed two pieces on their own (with wonderful harp accompaniment) and also took part in the large choral work, Pieta by Richard Blackford. For many of the younger students, this was the first time they had experienced
singing with an adult choir and performing with an orchestra – a fantastic experience for them! |
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Wessex Singing Schools FestivalOver the last term, Mrs Trevorrow has worked with all 14 first schools to prepare pupils in year 4 (and some year 3s) for the Singing Schools festival which took place on 11th-13th March. The children learnt five songs, which they performed in harmony altogether, and in addition, each school chose one song to sing on their own. The children performed brilliantly and we hope that they all enjoyed the experience. Some quotes from our audience: “It was lovely to see how engaged and committed they were, and above all, the joy they exuded.” “everyone did such a great job!” “An amazing performance thank you.” “Tuesday's concert was magnificent and full of joy.”
Well done to all the children who took part! |
Concert for YouthOn 9th March, 22 students from Thomas Hardye School joined forces with the semi-professional Dorset Chamber Orchestra for their 'Concert for Youth' in St Mary's church. The students joined with a selected of pieces from the Nutcracker and 'Mambo' from West Side Story. It was a wonderful opportunity to be part of such a large and high-level orchestra. We hope we will be able to work with the orchestra again in the future.
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IdomeneoOn 2nd March, the Thomas Hardye Singers and selected instrumentalists from Hardyes were lucky enough to take part in a wonderful performance of Mozart's Idomeneo in Sherborne Abbey, alongside students from a couple of local private schools.
The performance included a professional orchestra and soloists and was conducted by Andrew Griffiths who works with the Royal Opera House. The concert was organised by one of our singing teachers, Mr Valender, who has launched an education charity with the aim of bringing the experience of opera to more young people (https://www.destinationopera.co.uk/) It was a fabulous experience for all of our students and we are so grateful to Mr Valender for giving our students such a wonderful opportunity. |
Wind and Brass Day at SunninghillOn 8th February, 30 of our students from the middle schools joined students from Sunninghill Prep
School for a Wind and Brass day, led by Dave Andrews from Music Makers. This was a wonderful day and our students got to play both as a massed ensemble and in smaller groups, and received coaching from a variety of experience instrumental teachers. At the end of the day, the students performed a quick concert for parents, which was very well received. A huge thank you to Sunninghill for organising the day so brilliantly. |
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Christmas Concerts 2023On 6th December, around 200 students took part in the Wessex Schools Music and Thomas Hardye School Christmas Concerts. There were some wonderful performances from all of the groups including the Thomas Hardye Orchestra playing 'Sleigh Ride' and the Dorchester Children's Orchestra playing 'Hedwig's Theme' from Harry Potter.
You can see a summary video of most of the performances here: https://youtu.be/_V4N2Ozjm8c In addition to the Christmas Concerts, several of our ensembles supported other local events during the festive period, including the Thomas Hardye Pop Choir performing at the Dorchester Christmas Cracker, the Skylarks choir performing at the Poundbury Christmas Market and the Skylarks and Nightingales Choirs performing in a concert with local community choir, Cloud 9. Well done to all who performed this Christmas! |
Benedetti Foundation in DorsetIn October, Wessex Schools Music hosted the Benedetti Foundation’s Dorset residency, organised by the Dorset Music Hub. Musicians from the foundation ran KS2 workshops with children from Manor Park, St Mary’s Catholic, Damers, Prince of Wales, Puddletown First and St Mary’s Middle throughout the day. They also spent a whole day at Thomas Hardye working with around 90 beginner string players and 20 more advanced string players, as part of their String Day. This saw professional string players and music college students working with our children to produce two brilliant performances for parents to watch after school. We were also lucky enough to offer our A level students a Q&A session with the college students. The two days were a great success and inspiring for all involved!
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Steel Pans come to HardyesIn September, we kicked off the musical year at Hardyes with a music workshop day, which included a fabulous Steel Pans workshop by a visiting professional organisation called Inspire Works. Students took part in three workshops throughout the day, samba, singing and steel pans. It was a fantastic way to welcome interested year 9s to the department and to welcome the new year 10s and 12s to their GCSE and A level music courses. Here is a summary of the day: https://youtu.be/16n4gOyaaQU
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