‘The performance was SO amazing! What an experience for all the students. Not just in music and sound but science, the environment, the land they live in – this is exactly the way the bells work the best.’ Biddy Conner, curator for the Federation Handbells at Museums Victoria.

In the same way that all the different parts of the Galaxy make it a world of wonder, so too every contribution to our Bells Performance, be it a performing one or a valuable supporting role, enabled a magical creative experience. Thank you to everyone who was involved in the performance, and thank you to all our families for supporting the Federation Handbells/Percussion Workshops.

There were many performance highlights on the day, and the Home Group teachers and I marvelled at how well the students performed. The students’ focus and attentive listening through out the performance really impressed everyone. The softest whispers of rustling paper or chains swirling on the rims of bells, the subtle vocal hiss or delicate ’ting’ from a tiny brass cymbal could all be heard, not just as individual sounds, but as an amassed shimmer. When we give our attention to hear and feel sound in this way, especially in a live context, we allow our bodies and brains to take ’time out’ from their busy habit patterns. A moment of listening can go a long, restorative way.

The details of how the Neighbourhood performances have evolved have been described in Talking Point editions through out this term. Just in case you missed these reports, here is a summary of our program. The galactic inspirations for each neighbourhood sound piece were: Preps: The preps chose to explore stars. As well as singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star with Gen playing the harp, they created star constellations with chime-bars, bells and pudding bowls. The Yr 1s presented a Galaxy Parade and chose particular sounds from a variety of instruments to illustrate a space whale, meteors, stars in the Milky Way, Mars, space junk and space dancing chickens. The Yr 2s turned to Indigenous Astronomy for inspiration and created interactive sound star maps; the earth map mirroring the sky map. The Yr 2s also demonstrated the effects of the moon’s gravitational pull on ocean tides. Yr 3/4Ngh1 recreated NASA’s recording of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster Black Hole, and 3/4Ngh2 interpreted the sound of alien language and the way aliens move. The black hole from our own Milky Way Galaxy, Sagittarius A, and its nearest star constellations were the inspiration for the Yr5/6 Neighbourhood.

I’d like to give a ’shout out’ to our Bells Concert production crew. It’s fantastic that parents and carers, who are not able to attend assemblies or concerts in person, can join in and share the experiences of their children via the Live Stream. Some folk could tune in at work, others had the concert running while they were baking, and some ‘checked in’ in between serving customers. It’s exciting and inclusive, and with each performance event, our crew has the opportunity bring you to school online. The students are learning just what it takes to make this happen. Bravo to Cleo and Miles for their great roles as ’roaming choir mic’ operators. The gym’s acoustics are perfect for resonating bells and afford a lush, lingering sound world for those of us present in the gym. However, our camera mics are not able to capture all the detailed sounds which were made in different areas of the gym, and this is where Cleo’s and Miles’ contributions were so valuable with their Bluetooth roaming choir mics. Live Streaming is one of the good things to come out of the pandemic! We are all learning on the job, and are very lucky that Richard and Robert enjoy solving technical challenges, and can share their expertise with the students. Thank you to all.

It was an absolute delight to welcome the harpist Genevieve Fry to our school. I have been dreaming of bringing Gen to play for our students for years, and now that she is no longer a chef, and our gig didn’t get cancelled due to COVID, it has finally happened. Gen added plenty of improvised magic throughout the performance such as twinkling Milky Way stars and mysterious low tremolo sounds to evoke the planet Mars. The sound of the Preps voices singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star with Gen’s harp went straight to our hearts and if that didn’t ’get you’, then the warmth of all the students and audience singing along a second time was embracing. We were equally moved by the whole school singing Bjork’s stunning song Cosmogony. The Neighbourhoods sang their creation story verses beautifully. I loved the contrasting vocal quality as we moved from the bright young voices of the Preps, to the older timbre of the Yr 3/4s, then back to a lighter quality again for the Yr1/2s and the more mellow warmth of the 5/6s. It brings home just how much the children grow and change in 7 fleeting years. Precious indeed. The bells and harp accompaniment were equally sublime.

After the 3/4Ngh1 performance of the Perseus Black Hole, Peter and Elissa performed a short improvisation on the quarter tone bells. The quarter tone bells have a tuning that that is not pure in pitch, their pitches rest somewhere between the conventional tones and semi-tones of western music: they are the pitches which hide between the black and white keys of a piano. Although the students didn’t perform on the quarter tone bells, we still had quarter tones pinging everywhere as most of the augmented instrumentation for the concert was made up from ’found objects’ which can be played as instruments. Hearing pitch bend, especially when placed beside tuned sounds, is an aspect of contemporary Classical composition which has been explored in recent decades.

Please enjoy these memories from the day.

’Thank you for inviting me into such a joyful and exciting experience’ Elissa

‘The students were wonderful to work with and the final performance was absolutely overwhelming in both its scale and the beauty of what the whole team achieved !! Please say a huge thank-you to everyone at PHPS for their warm welcome , engagement and help.’ Peter

‘Congratulations everyone on such an innovative, informative and captivating concert. Absolutely loved it.’ Genevieve

Bravo and thank you to everyone for a wonderful collaborative term and for expanding our worlds of music with your imaginations. Have a lovely and happy Spring holiday, and if you are leaving the city area, take a moment to look up to our star filled sky. Cheerio and best wishes, Deb.