There is a little magic in the air: spring blossom and holidays are upon us, and the school grounds are looking refreshed and feel great after the kind TLC of Sunday’s working Bee! It’s been a fantastic Term of music making and togetherness as we gathered to honour and celebrate important events and achievements in learning. In the past couple of weeks we have enjoyed transferring some of our skills from African Drumming to rhythm sticks to build our ensemble/team participation. The 5/6s gave a great Variety Concert for their Neighbourhood, and the choir is gearing up for a busy Term 4. Please read on via the link 🙂
‘When the moon hits your eye with a big pizza pie… that’s amore!’ What an intergenerational favourite this song That’s Amore is, and it’s one which has remained in the school repertoire of songs for as long as I can remember. As we prepared to sing this for our Father’s and Special Carer’s Day Assembly, we remembered that our parents and carers were once kids too, and with some leading suggestions from the Preps, we reworked the first verse for our special assembly…
‘All our Mums and our Dads and our Pops and our Nans, you’re… amazing! You were kids just like us, caused your folks the same fuss, made ‘em… crazy!’ It was a lot of fun to sing this song again for the first time since the Lockdowns, and to introduce it to the Junior school who were delighted to see Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis sing the song in the 1957 film ‘The Caddy’. For our assembly, we welcomed Eric Dickson to accompany the community singing on his accordion, and we were treated to a very special performance of ‘In Dreams’, the beautiful Theme from ‘The Lord of the Rings’ movies by Howard Shore, by our school cellists Karl and David. Thank you to everyone for the heartwarming tributes to our Dads and Carers, and for joining in with our school sing-alongs, and if you have a long holiday drive up the freeway ahead, don’t forget that you have some classics to sing in the car to help you on your way!
And, here’s another inspiring lyric: ‘There’s a train in Africa, it travels all around. It carries hope of peace and unity.’ The choir has been loving singing the Nguni song Shosholoza from South Africa with it’s beautiful melodies, harmony lines, dance moves and bilingual lyrics in Zuni/Ndebele and English. It is a song traditionally sung by the workers of the diamond and gold mines, and is one of those songs which makes hard work lighter. It has such a special and deep place in the hearts of the South African people, that it’s often referred to as South Africa’s second National Anthem.
Emily and I are really loving our choir group of students. I can fondly describe them as raucous galahs and angels and everything in between 🙂 and in the midst of this fantastic gamut of freedom of expression and excitement, there is good, solid learning happening. A huge joy is to see the growth of confidence in students who were initially too shy to perform, but are now confident to stand and sing in public with their friends. Other students are stepping up to take on vocal solos and leadership roles in part singing. A recent focus and coordination challenge that Emily has introduced, is the Ten Steps Samoan Sarsa: a series of body percussion moves which build in intricacy, and look and sound super cool.
Next Term we are looking forward to expanding the choir into a special Family Choir which will prepare songs to perform at the Bazaar. Another highlight will be when we combine with choirs from Brunswick South and Brunswick East Primary Schools for a performance in Week 4. Many thanks to families and students of the school choir, and to Emily: you really rock and brighten the middle of the week 🌟😃.
Over the past couple of weeks we have been focusing on left and right hand coordination and team building cooperation by singing songs whilst playing rhythm games. The short African song Obwisana from Ghana, is a perfect short melody with a clear beat that entices you to move, or more traditionally, to be involved in some kind of manual work. The stick passing games involve passing rhythm sticks around a student circle with the rhythmic discipline that makes us feel like the most efficient of production lines… until there is a ‘malfunction’! When we have mastered a basic passing pattern, we then integrate other percussion gestures, and we are aiming for a snare drum routine which includes stick flips and other tricks! For the Preps though, they have really latched onto the the best test for confirming which is your left had, and have solved which way you need to move to pass a stick across your body with your left hand, so that you can give it to your neighbour on your right! Bravo everyone, these are challenging exercises for personal coordination growth, and also for building social skills to enable a successful achievement for the whole Home Group.
In the 5/6 Neighbourhood, we ended the Term with a Variety Concert that really impressed on a number of levels. Students were inspired to form their own performance groups and had found time to prepare their items to a high performance level. We enjoyed top flute performances from Claudia, Olivia and Scarlett, and a beaut send up of Break Dancing displayed hilarious slow motion moves from Charlotte performed to Bessie’s flute tootling of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Ziyu and Karl’s performance of The Irrepressibles was excellently prepared and a clear crowd pleaser, and Claudia and Lyla entertained us with impressive, and expressive, comic timing in their ‘Dad’s Jokes’ routine. We were treated to a well rehearsed dance routine from the musical Hairspray from Sarah, Lyla and Iggy. The students were a a great audience, and came complete with a judging panel to give creative feedback. Bravo 5/6s, and please keep your performances polished to share with our community for the Bazaar Talent Quest.
My thanks to absolutely everyone for learning, sharing, supporting and lifting our spirits through music. It has been a wonderful Term 3 with much to celebrate. Have a lovely Spring break and I look forward to Fabulous Term Four! Cheerio, Deb.