Summer Term 2023 Highlights
Summer Term 2023 - News
As we end another academic year I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our musicians for a year of fantastic work and play! This year has very much been about consolidating and rebuilding after the difficulties of the aftermath of Covid and we are so pleased with the way that all our ensembles and vocal groups have responded. The year has produced some of the best and most exciting performances from many of our ensembles and the Summer Term has been an excellent example of the range, scope, quality and number of musical events our team of pupil and staff musicians have produced. If you are joining PGS Seniors next term, please do read on to get a flavour for all that is on offer musically.
Chamber Choir Chichester Cathedral 26 April
Our annual evensong with Prebendal School Chamber Choir is always an enjoyable event and it was lovely to be back in Chichester Cathedral singing music by Stanford and Palestrina in such a beautiful building. The choir made a wonderful sound and the blend and balance of these singers who had never sung together before this service was beautiful.
Massed Bands Coronation Concert 11 May
In celebration of the coronation of King Charles III members of PGS Brass and Concert Band joined with the Royal Marines Association Concert Band and the Royal Marines School of Music Band in a glorious celebration of music related to the coronation on Thursday 11 May. This was the first collaboration between PGS Music Department and the Royal Marines and was a fantastic opportunity for our musicians to play side-by-side with these wonderful professional musicians. The band of nearly 80 players filled the cathedral with music by Walton, Elgar and Malcolm Arnold amongst other pieces. This sell-out concert was attended by some of the navy’s most high profile dignitaries and was clearly enjoyed by all. We plan for this to be the start of some exciting musical collaborations between PGS and the Marines musicians. Thank you to Mr Brown and Miss Heath for their hard work in preparing our musicians.
Year 13 Leavers
We said goodbye to our Year 13s in a lovely service at Portsmouth Cathedral on 12 May. Robbie Stone set the tone with a transfixing performance of Bloch’s Prayer on the cello at the start of the service. This was followed by Poppy Walker and Saffron Irons playing and singing Billy Joel’s Vienna and a beautiful upper voice close harmony quartet arrangement of Abba’s Slipping through my fingers. Jason Shiu closed the service with an uplifting performance of Billy Mayerl’s Sweet William. Thank you to our year 13s for all the support they have given the Music Department and for sharing their talent and passion for music with us for the last 7 years.
Summer Concert - 18 May
With our older years firmly ensconced in school and public examinations, our Summer Concert was a chance for years 7-9 to take centre stage in the Summer Concert. Featuring over 100 pupils in solo performances, duets, a string quartet, 2 rock bands, a jazz ensemble, Middle School Brass Band, Girls’ Voices, Sinfonietta Wind Ensemble and Sinfonietta String Orchestra this was a lovely opportunity for the lower and middle school to shine.
Cathedral Sing - Emsworth & Corpus Christi School & Isle of Wight
The partnership work that PGS Music Department and the Cathedral Music Department do together to take singing into local primary schools is always hugely rewarding and enjoyable. This term staff from both the school and cathedral along with the boy and girl choristers have worked with 500 pupils from schools in Emsworth, North End and on the Isle of Wight in singing workshops. Pupils in years 3-6 have been taught good singing technique and a variety of songs over a number of weeks that are then performed in a concert to their parents supported by members of the cathedral choir. It is such a valuable learning experience both for the participants and for our pupils.
Junior Music Week
The penultimate week before the May half term is our Junior School Music week which the Senior School Music Department always enjoys being part of. This year 50 of our musicians in years 7-12 were involved in performing to the juniors during their assembly times. We shared music from our Wind Trio, Brass Sextet, Jazz Messengers, Double Bass duo, Barbershop sextet, Students’ Jazz Collective, Middle School String Quartet, Cathedral Choristers and Close Harmony Group all performed to and talked about their music making with enthusiastic audiences of Junior School pupils.
Above left:
Pupils' Collective perform in the Cathedral to the Junior School.
Left:
Double bass players Andrew (y12) and Noah (y8) entertain year 4.
Portsmouth Cultural Explosion - 8 June
Jazz Messengers (the year 7-9 jazz group) and Middle School Brass were part of an exciting concert in the King’s Theatre on the morning of 8 June for 500 local primary school children showcasing the cultural artistic diversity of Performing Arts in Portsmouth. As the only school represented as performers, the pupils were a fantastic showcase for the quality of Music on offer at PGS and were hopefully able to inspire the young audience to explore what is possible on a variety of different instruments.
Copy of Culutral Explosion MS Brass.MOVMiddle School Brass perform at Cultural Explosion
Middle School Brass perform at Cultural Explosion
Middle School Brass perform at Cultural Explosion
Copy of Cultural Explosion Jazz Messengers2.MOVJazz Collective perform at Cultural Explosion
Wicked Trip - 21 June
21 year 9 and 10 musicians spent a fantastic afternoon in London’s West End watching a matinee performance of the hit musical Wicked on 21 June. As a GCSE set work it was great to see the whole show, but what was even more special was the Q&A session that had been arranged with four of the cast members after the show. We spoke to the performers who played the wizard in that show, the cover for Galinda, one of the ensemble members and the Musical Director for the show. It was an amazing opportunity to find out more about the life of a West End performer, how they got into their careers and how they cared for their voices amongst other things. We even came away with a poster signed by all the cast!
Lunchtime Live!- 22 June
Our termly performance at Portsmouth Cathedral’s Lunchtime Live! was a superb display of talent from ten of our music scholars from year 8 to year 12. Featuring assured and musical performances on trumpet, trombone, double bass, bassoon, piano, alto saxophone and piano trio this was a very warmly received recital by the audience.
Harvey - saxophone solo
Ella, Harry and James - Kegelstatt Trio
Sam - bassoon solo
Andrew - double bass solo
Noah - double bass solo
Musical Theatre Evening - 23 June
The quality of our musical theatre students was on display in our annual evening of Musical Theatre performances. 17 talented performers from year 7 to year 13 treated an appreciative audience to songs from shows from the Golden Age of Broadway up to the present day.
Glastonbury comes to the Quad!
PGS’s own mini tribute to Glastonbury came on Tuesday 27 June when 6th Form Band, Autonomous State gave an open air lunchtime concert in aid of Smith House’s charity. The band’s covers ranged from the Artic Monkeys to Cocoon.
Autonmous State play in the Quad.
Music Scholars’ Evening - 27 June
The focus of this year’s Music Scholar Evening was ensemble performance. Over the Summer Term our scholars have been working in groups developing their accompaniment skills as the pianists amongst them worked on the skilled art of accompanying another instrument. The evening was a chance to hear some of their work along with performances from other scholar chamber ensembles.
Ports Fest - 28 June - 2 July
The Music Department played an active part in PortsFest this year, curating Portsmouth Keys - an exciting project that shone the spotlight on the piano. Three pianos were placed in public locations around Portsmouth after having been decorated by three local primary schools (who were also gifted these pianos at the end of the Festival) for people to play on. In order to encourage local school children to explore the piano a series of free public concerts was given for local primary schools on a number of pianos in and around Portsmouth. PGS’s Director of Music visited Flying Bull Academy to work with 50 year 6 pupils on rhythmic improvisation skills in order to perform an exciting improvised piece of music with Fabio Tedde on the public piano in Portsmouth International Port. PGS’s own advanced pianists were showcased with their own evening recital, and our piano pupils were all treated to a wonderful workshop on improvisation by the fabulous Harry the Piano whose evening concert at the NTR was hugely entertaining and a real spectacle of creative genius. Our Concert Band and Pupils’ Collective Jazz Band gave an open air lunchtime performance in Gunwharf Quays to a very appreciative audience of shoppers.
Pupils from Flying Bull Academy improvise with Fabio Tedde, Pianist without Borders
Pupils' Collective performing in Gunwharf Quays
A Night at the Musicals - 6 July
This was an exciting collaboration between PGS, the Royal Marines School of Music and Portsmouth Music Hub. Held in the Guildhall a choir of over 200 Portsmouth Primary and Secondary pupils sang their hearts out with medleys from popular musicals across the ages. Three PGS singers also had the fantastic opportunity to be soloists for some of the items. The RMSoM band and PGS Concert Band were the 70 piece backing orchestra and our pupils hugely enjoyed the experience of working with these professional musicians in joint rehearsals in the lead up to the performance.
Founder’s Day - 7 July
The final day of the Summer Term is a chance for the school to commemorate our founder, William Smith. Our musicians were a key lead in this service. Symphony Orchestra’s classy opening of the first movement from Vaughan Williams’ English Folk Song Suite (written exactly 100 years ago) provided suitable sparkle at the opening. The orchestra also provided added colour to hymns with flamboyant orchestrations written by the Music Department. Chamber Choir performed Edward Bairstow’s dramatic introit Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence and Charles Wood’s stirring anthem O Thou the Central Orb.
PGS Music Department Recording Project:
During the second half of the Summer Term we made a start to immortalise our smaller ensembles by recording them in a more professional way. Close Harmony was first to go and you can hear their recording of Shawn Mendes’ Stitches here featuring a super solo from Yasmin in year 10 and beautifully recorded and mixed by Mr King. We plan to add more groups over the coming year.
Stitches - recorded by Close Harmony.