Music at Perseid

Lower School

Pupils continue to participate in the Mini Musicians programme funded by Merton Music Foundation, Roehampton University and Merton Council.  This week Adam Ockelford from Roehampton who is the Professor of Music running the research project and expert in SEND Music visited pupils in Tiger class and observed a session. He was very impressed with how well the pupils played, sang and their general level of musicianship. Some pupils will take part in an end of project celebration with other schools across the Borough.

We had another visit from Live Music Now - pupils from Starfish Class and Zebra Class were treated to an interactive concert from a wind quartet.  The pupils were really engaged by the instruments, particularly the bassoon  and  everyone enjoyed participating by playing percussion and creating movement with scarves. The musicians were very impressed with how the children listened and joined in.  We look forward to welcoming them back soon and to continuing our link with Live Music Now.

We had our annual Blues and Roots event last term where other schools joined us for workshops and a performance with the brilliant Blues and Roots ensemble.  Again Perseid pupils really shone with one pupil performing a piano duet with one of the musicians.

Upper School 

Key Stage 3 pupils having enjoyed singing and playing Soul and Funk music students have just started a unit of work on Samba.  Pupils will be playing as a Samba band by learning to copy samba rhythms and play as a group.

Sixth Form pupils continue to enjoy Open Orchestra sessions with support from MMF  and  professional musician Kurt Mayling. Pupils have played adapted versions of classical music using a range of instruments including keyboards, Soundbeam and Clarion . This year we have focused on modern and more ground breaking composers such as Grace Williams and we learnt to play our version of her beautiful piece, "Sea Sketches."  The students have also found different ways of making their own music, while exploring the work of some of the most influential women in music over the last 100 years

 Live Music Now

We continue to work with charity Live Music Now supporting the training of their musicians and being lucky enough to be offered free workshops and concerts.  We were visited by the very talented singer/songwriter Holly Rogers and had  the chance to listen as well as  in with her original music.

Jazz Concert

This term we are all looking forward to a return visit from some of the musicians from  Jazz at New Lincoln Center in New York.  The musicians will perform alongside the Blues and Roots ensemble to perform a special concert for all our pupils at upper school.