Music

Simple Gifts and Jazz Journey concert

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Published: Wednesday, 11 July 2018 21:18

Written by Mrs A Cooper

On Monday 9 July2018, a number of musically talented students from year 7-12, took to the stage at St George’s Church, Deal as part of the Deal Music and Arts Festival.
The audience were treated to a fantastic programme, including Piano Trio in A minor by Ravel, Appalachian Spring by Copland and Blue Monk by our very own Jazz Journey performers.

Our students have been benefiting from termly workshop sessions with Jazz experts, who have been teaching the group the rudiments of Jazz theory as well as working through some Jazz standards and performance skills as an ensemble. Please take a look at the videos of them performing Blue Monk as an ensemble - of purely Dane Court students.

The concert finished with a composition commissioned by London Chamber Orchestra, which explores the idea of Simple Gifts, a composition from 1848 by Joseph Brackett. The melody may be recognisable as Lord of The Dance, explored through various interesting and progressive harmonic journeys.
Well done to all involved, it was a fantastic concert and one which showed how lucky we are to have such musically talented students within the school.
Students involved; Rohan Terenghi, Maria Munnich, Joseph Chesters, Ruby Naylor, Jonah Knight and Mikey Chesters.

Music Cup 2018

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Published: Friday, 30 March 2018 16:11

Written by Mrs A Cooper

On Friday 16 March 2018 we held our annual Music Cup competition between all the houses here at Dane Court.

This year we welcomed guest judges Mark Smith from Kent Music and Zoe Carassik-Lord from Pie Factory Music in Ramsgate.

All year sevens performed a whole class song as part of the competition and each house needed to organise a performance for the following categories; KS3 Solo performance, KS4 solo performance, KS5 solo performance, Folk solo performance and group performance (mix of ages).
Congratulations to Gabriel Price-Butt (8B) who won the KS3 solo performance round, with a knock-out drum kit solo of ‘Mary’ by The Macabees.
Chloe Sanyu (6N2) won the Folk performance round with ‘’Tis The Last Rose of Summer’ by Renee Fleming. Chloe will automatically win a trophy at Prize Giving and have the opportunity to perform this piece at Broadstairs Folk Week in the SummerIn KS4, Jack Wilkinson won the round with his performance of ‘River Flows in You’ by Yiruma on Guitar, which demands real expression throughout.
Maria Munnich (6B1) won the KS5 round with her vocal performance of ‘Popular’ by S. Schwartz from the Musical Wicked.
The group performance first place went to Brothers’ Joseph and Michael Chesters (6D1 and 7D) with their captivating rendition of Hungarian Dance No.5 in F# Minor by J. Brahms.

Overall, Neuchatel took first place, Barcelona second, Sorrento third, Helsinki fourth, Delphi fifth and Tallin sixth.

Thank you to all our performers, the judges were blown away with the standard of performances and have already asked if they can come back next year to judge.

Liliana Clark (8H) performed as part of the folk solo performance round and although she did not come first, the judges were so astounded by her performance of ‘Little Lion Man’ by Mumford and Sons, they gave her the honorary prize of ‘Performer of The Day’. Liliana has been offered a free studio recording session at Pie Factory music as part of her prize.

Jazz Journey workshops

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Published: Friday, 30 March 2018 15:52

Written by Mrs A Cooper

Musicians from year 7-12 enjoyed another fantastic workshop on 6 March 2018 exploring the nature of Jazz and all its intricacies.

Students will be building up their jazz repertoire at these workshops in preparation for a schools performance at St George’s church, Deal on Monday 9 July 2018 as part of the Deal Festival.

Orchestra Day

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Published: Friday, 30 March 2018 15:30

Written by Mrs A Cooper

On 23 March 2018, we welcomed 120 musicians from neighbouring Primary Schools to perform as part of an Orchestra here at Dane Court. Our bigger vision in music here at Dane Court is to see the growth of community music and bringing musicians together from different schools to play as one.

As part of this free experience, students experienced a workshop exploring composition and playing as an ensemble as well as learning some classical pieces which were performed on the day. 

34 Dane Court students worked as mentors during the day, helping younger students with their day at secondary school as well as supporting them with their performing and playing.
During the Orchestra Day, all students got to perform their own composition as well as three classical pieces of music, including adaptations from The New World Symphony by Dvorak and Waltz of The Flowers by Tchaikovsky.
Learning to perform as part of an ensemble is a fantastic skill and really important to build from the beginner years of learning an instrument.
Dane Court Music Department are working with Kent Music to explore bringing more schools together for other ensembles in the near future, watch this space!
Following the success of the day, in May 2018 a new ensemble will be offered to students of Thanet aged 8-13 here at Dane Court on a Wednesday night, 4:00pm-6:00pm.
More details can be found here: https://www.kent-music.com/groups/music-explorers/
Thank you to all the schools who took part and we really are looking to seeing you again.

Open Mic Night

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Published: Sunday, 25 March 2018 21:46

Written by Mrs A Cooper

Tuesday 6 March 2018 Dane Court Grammar School held its first Open Mic Evening. I was overwhelmed by the number of students who wanted to perform, with over 23 acts signing up!

The night was open to any group or performer who wanted to perform in an informal setting. Rohan Terenghi (6N2) did a fantastic job of hosting the evening. We had a range of students performing from year 7, right up to year 13!
Key Stage 5 saw Amelia Bell (6S7) kick off the evening with her beautiful rendition of ‘This Years Love’ by David Gray on voice and piano as well as Lily-Ann Naylor (6H2) with her own vocal version of ‘When We Were Young’ by Adele. Other performances included a mashup of ‘La Vie En Rose’ by Maria Munnich (6B1) on vocals and ukulele and ‘The Man I love’ performed by Joseph Chesters on piano. Johanna Steinvorth (6S2) and Issac Kundukulam (6H2) performed ‘Lost Boy’ by Ruth B on piano and voice.
In year 7 we had performances from  Eleanor Golding (7H) who performed ‘Igorni’ by Ludovico Einaudi on Piano, Charlie Luxmore (7S) performed ‘A Million Dreams’ from the musical The Greatest Showman and Angelina Saad (7N) who sang a beautiful acapella piece in Russian. Rebecca Wells performed ‘Hallelujah’ by Alexandra Burke and Tom Couzens and Lexie Vincent (7B) performed a duet on Guitar and Voice of ‘Someone Like You’ by Adele.
In year 8 we had a performance from Liliana Clark (8H) performing ‘Time After Time’ by Cyndi Lauper on Guitar and Voice.
Year 9 showed a real array of talent from Abigail Heyfron (9H) performing ‘How are Things in Glocca Morra?’ by B. Lane with piano accompaniment as well as a group performance of ‘Titanium’ by Sia from class band in 9S. Shayen Kerai performed on Piano and Voice with a Sam Smith chart topper ‘I’m Not The Only One’.
Chloe Strutt (9B) closed the show with a haunting performance of ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ by Elvis Presley.

Thank you to all the performers and support for this event, I am hoping to host another Open Mic early next year and look forward to perhaps adding in some staff performances!