Another day of music making has brought lots of great moments for our musicians!
Our students after the water fight
Orchestral players started their day with a full morning of string and wind sectionals with Miranda Allen (violin) and Mark Pollard (oboe and bassoon) respectively. Under their expert guidance the students worked on listening carefully to each other and playing together as one connected section. The afternoon was spent rehearsing their repertoire as a full orchestra, including Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and Rossini’s Thieving Magpie Overture, tackling tricky corners and enhancing the collective sound.
Wind sectional in action
The choir began piecing together their varied programme for Saturday’s Winchester concert, and even started to include more choreography and drama. In the last session they tackled Judith Weir's "Love Bade Me Welcome", a difficult piece of music with a lot of challenging intervals and melodic lines. It’s only day 2 and these young singers are already stretching the boundaries of what they can achieve!
Tom Appleton leading our choir
Saxophones had the opportunity to work with visiting saxophonist Alex Western-King on jazz techniques. They learnt how to ‘break free’ from classical playing, as well as learning rhymes for tonguing technique and how to keep the throat still whilst playing. Throughout the day they looked at the history of how the style developed, different jazz scales and modes, and how to choose one to to play over a chord sequence. During the afternoon musicianship session, our orchestral wind and brass players even got to join in and compose their very own ‘Ingenium blues’.
Pianists began the day with their daily faculty meeting, before delving into sight reading with our wonderful Richard Sisson. Richard has developed his own unique sight reading method and produced his own book of excercises - all took to the challenge and produced some great results, both on their own and in front of their colleagues. Individual lessons also continued throughout the day as well as time for personal practice to develop their new skills.
Conductors took their work outside today, using skewers and elastic bands instead of their usual batons before returning indoors to look through scores of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. This was a brilliant opportunity for them to familiarise themselves with an iconic work, make decisions about interpretation, and then learn how to transfer that information to the conducting podium.
Conducting students learning baton technique
Our pastoral staff brought their instruments to aid the composers in their sessions, giving a demonstration of each instrument's ranges and specific techniques. Composers also learnt what professional musicians look for in their parts and how these elements together bring meaning to the music. With this information the group was set the task of writing for the instrumentalists to workshop tomorrow. We’re excited to see the results!
Composition with Michael Betteridge
Tonight’s evening activity was planned as a simple ‘Spelling Bee’, but with a musical twist- students had to collect fragments of sheet music from around the field and connect them together to identify the piece. Sounds simple, but it was made more challenging by our pastoral staff armed with water pistols to protect the piles of music! Eventually, everyone joined in the water fight and was able to let loose.
Before the water fight...
So much fun and high quality music today – we can’t wait to continue it all tomorrow!
See more photos from this summer on our Facebook page.
Musicians of the day:
Orchestra: Vasilli, for being punctual, having an excellent lesson with Matt Sharp and setting an example to the rest of his colleagues
Vocal: Olivier, for being a great team player, strong sight-singing in a minority, holding his line and having a great attitude and focus
Saxophone: Anna-Maria, for brilliant soprano playing and a really impressive level of playing all day
Piano: Luca and Ona, for being supportive of each other during sight reading, having prepared and practised for the session and getting to a high level of playing
Conductor: Ellin and Natasha
Ellin for having the confidence to stand up first to conduct and setting the bar really high
Natasha for overcoming her own challenges to conduct really well and find her own style
Composer: Isabella S, for coming out of her shell, embracing composing, writing for choir brilliantly with lyrics, creating a piece that was singable, idiomatic and beautiful
Our Programmes
More information on our seven programmes: Chamber Music, Composition, Conducting, Orchestral, Piano, Saxophone and Vocal.
Programmes range from 1 week to 4 weeks long. Students can attend one immersive programme, or broaden their experience by combining programmes to suit their interests.
Any Questions?
We love speaking to young musicians, teachers and families from around the world - so don't hesitate to get in touch, we'd love to hear from you!
Email: info@ingeniumacademy.com
Phone: +44 (0)20 7060 4076
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