GCSE Music Students’ Concert

Inspiring and informative concert supports students’ learning.

On Monday 25th March, our Year 10 Music GCSE Students travelled to the Gordon Craig Theatre to watch a fantastic concert, conducted and led by Patrick Bailey. Patrick Bailey is a conductor, composer, arranger and presenter who conducts concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and many others. He has given concerts across Europe and in Dubai, India, Oman, China and the USA. As a composer, workshop leader and presenter, Patrick has led projects and written and presented concerts for BBC orchestras, BBC Proms, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Royal Opera House, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Music for Youth. He led an inspiring and informative session for us, which presented pieces from different musical periods, some minimalism as well as music composed for television. The pieces were performed by a small orchestra of professional musicians. As well as performances of the works, Patrick also explained the context of the pieces, and analysed them, illustrating his points with some cues being played by the musicians. The language he used to do this recapped some key vocabulary which is vital for our students in their listening and appraising exam. Furthermore, it was fantastic for us to see more unusual instruments such as the harpsichord in action, live. The afternoon concluded with Patrick leading a composition session in which he illustrated an approach to composing a whole piece for GCSE using just two 4-bar fragments of music. It was a very useful learning experience for students in order to help them with the composition element of the course, just prior to embarking upon their own composition coursework. This was a fantastic event organised by Hertfordshire Music Service and we were very pleased to be able to take part.

Mrs McKinnell