An audience of over 300 St John’s Grammar School community members packed out the Edwardstown Baptist Church in June for our annual String and Woodwind Concert, featuring our largest group of performers to date: 90 students from our Junior Campus and 58 from our Secondary Campus!
This Concert is designed to show the journey our string and woodwind musicians take as they progress through each of our ensembles. A signature experience of Year 3 involves our students participating in the Strings Immersion Program, learning violin, viola or cello for a year under the expert tuition of our instrumental tutors. The Year 3 students opened the Concert with 7 songs that showcased just how far they have come across Semester 1, and they were then joined on stage by more experienced Junior Campus students to perform a stirring rendition of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’.
Our string ensembles from across the school each took to the stage, performing pieces from a wide range of genres. In addition to performances by each ensemble, the audience were blown away by the talents of our senior students who performed as soloists or in a duet or trio.
This Concert also featured our growing Flute Ensembles, beginning with Flutissimo in Junior School, then our rapidly growing Secondary School Flute Ensemble and newly formed Advanced Flute Ensemble.
Additionally, we proudly featured classical guitar students in both Junior and Secondary School Guitar Ensembles. These students have excelled in performance this year, achieving notable success in the Guitar Division of the Adelaide Eisteddfods, including a first place win for the Secondary School Ensemble and second place for the Junior School Ensemble.
A perfect ending to this wonderful display of musical talent was the Secondary School Orchestra, which just continues to grow in size and skill. The audience was blown away by their performance of William Tell Overture, conducted by Joseph Freer.
Thank you to our ensemble directors and tutors: Joseph Freer, Emma Richardson, Tiffany Hunter, Caleb Lavery-Brook, Cassandra Boath and Leith Stutterd, who continue to inspire and guide our music students.
Photos taken by Nick Blyth (Old Scholar, Class of 2018)