Drumming, ‘Bright Morning Stars’, Mid Year Concert and Song Writing in Term 3.
Kofi Kunkpe 
Djembe and Kpanlogo drums
Only 19 more sleeps until we start Drumming… ‘Yay’! Term 3 is promising to be fantastic: we will ‘drum the winter blues away’ with Kofi and Appiah, celebrate our Instrumental Music student’s achievements in their Mid Year Concert, launch a new before-school choir ‘Bright Morning Stars’ with Emily Hayes, and explore the art of song writing. Until then though, we are all ready for a well earned break.
Our Yr 5/6 students will remember Kofi’s first visit with us in 2016, and students in years 3-6 will remember drumming and dancing with Kofi and Kwame in 2018. It is a great joy to welcome him back and to have the opportunity to build on our skills and deepen our ongoing collaboration. Due to the impact of COVID-19 our program is shorter this year, but it will have all the energy and drive we remember and love. Everyone will have 4 drumming/dance sessions, and, COVID regulations permitting, we hope to enjoy a big day of sharing our learning at the end.
Balancing calabash bowls 
Playing the kalimba and sharing stories 
How many bowls can you balance on your head? 
Flying like kites! Thanks again to the super Yr 2 Mums of 2016 for hemming Kofi’s traditional material!
‘Bright Morning Stars’ is a new singing class/choir which aims to give students an opportunity to develop their vocal and music/ ensemble skills. The choir is open to students from Yrs 2 – 6 who love to sing and want to challenge their abilities. Please see the details below. If you love to singing the shower, or any time, this choir is for you! I’m going to join in too! ( Psst! We will be aiming for 2 part singing in the first rehearsal so don’t forget your ears!)
Every year, the Australian Children’s Music Foundation has a National Song Writing Competition. Children from across Australia are invited to write and submit their own song, and so far, this competition has inspired 28,000 songs to be written by children. How to write a song is as limited as your imagination. There are so many ways to present a song that getting started can feel overwhelming. For many children though, songs just keep popping into their heads, and the songs that ‘pop in’ can be about anything in the world. You can write a song about a speck of sand or the Galaxy, you can celebrate what makes you happy, or explore how tough life can be. When you write a song and share it, you’ll find that you are not alone. We will explore how to get started and share some examples of songs students have written.
FYI, here is a link to the Australian Children’s’ Music Foundation https://acmf.com.au/
Instrumental Music: Our wonderful IM program continues impressively, and we are looking forward to our mid year concert on Friday 30th July. COVID lockdowns are now a familiar road of challenges which find us digging a little deeper to help keep things running. A big thank you to our IM teachers and Richard for swinging into IM online via webex for the day we returned to school, and we are very relieved to all be back on site again. Thank you too, to families for staying in-touch with all the Compass updates about the running of our IM program. To our IM students, you have been absolutely super to stay enthusiastic as the IM landscape kept changing this term. You are all playing your instruments fabulously!! Please remember to show your instrument a little bit of love (or a lot😁) over the holidays as we look forward to enjoying your performances next month!
Thank you to everyone for an enriching Term 2 of music. Have a lovely break: gentle and happy, and I look forward to seeing you all next Term.
Cheerio, Deb