Designed to start the year with a musical bang, this past weekend’s workshops in the Senior School were a time of repertoire-learning and a coming together for the joy of live music-making. On Saturday morning, Dudley Trollope and Nomvula Mehlomakhulu led the choir in an exciting two hour rehearsal in The Edge theatre.

The jazz band began the year with a rehearsal on Friday 28 January in which we started to learn several new tunes. Jane McMurray also joined us and led the band in a workshop about performance practice, relaxation and visualisation techniques. We all thoroughly enjoyed this and are looking forward to inviting her back to work with the band again. On Saturday, we were joined by trumpeter Marcus Wyatt and bassist Romy Brauteseth, leading lights of the South African jazz scene.

We were also joined by our new flute teacher Cayley Fitzgerald, who is fast making a positive impact in our Music department, saxophonist Jemma Falkov and guitarist Elliott Rogers, leader of the St Mary’s jazz band in 2020, now studying a Bachelor of Music degree at Wits University under the tuition of award-winning guitarist Vuma Levin.

It was wonderful to stand on stage together to make music with the promise of future performances to come.

CERI MOELWYN-HUGHES
MUSIC TEACHER