Scotch College

Music on the March

Term 4 commenced with the annual Chamber Music Dinner on 6 August. This year marked the 40th anniversary of the Music Auxiliary, and a plaque, in the Ayre Foyer of the James Forbes Academy, was unveiled by the Principal, Dr Gordon Donaldson, acknowledging the Auxiliary’s contribution to the JFA and Music at Scotch. The dinner was held in the Main Foyer of the JFA, and comprised a dinner interspersed by performances from the various chamber music ensembles. Works performed included Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, two miniatures by Frank Bridge, and piano trios by Smetana (Op. 15), and Beethoven (Op. 11). The Year 12 trio concluded the evening with Mendelssohn’s ever popular piano trio No 1. Worthy of particular note were two exceptional compositions by Year 11 composer, Matthew Ng – possibly the most sophisticated music I have heard from a student of that age. Head of Keyboard Studies, Teresa Lavers deserves particular mention for organising and hosting the night, along with the Music Auxiliary who organised the dinner superbly. It was a great night.

A few days later, the biennial Combined Schools Festival commenced. The festival has been established for 25 years, and provides students from schools from different states an opportunity to meet and join with other musicians to perform major works beyond the usual capacity of one school. This year, some 400 young musicians from Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney, along with some local schools, participated.

Three international guest conductors were invited to conduct the Festival Orchestra, the Chorale and the Symphonic Band. John Apeitos from Athens conducted the orchestra, Paula Crider from Texas conducted the band, and Dr Anton Armstrong from Minnesota, Scotch’s Foundation Fellow, directed the Chorale and Chamber Choir. The festival concluded with a concert at the Melbourne Town Hall on 13 August, and it included a superb performance of True North, a specially commissioned work for choir and orchestra from Nicholas Buc (’99), now a professional and much acclaimed composer. It was a wonderful occasion. However, Scotch last hosted the event in 1993, and as it drew to a close, we reflected with some relief that our turn will not come again until 2013! Our thanks to the families who billeted so many students.

One further initiative was the first purely choral concert. Our choir presented the concert under the guest direction of Dr Armstrong.

Senior singers also combined with Lauriston’s singers to present some exceptional work. However, it was the sound of the full 140 voice Scotch Choir which made the night particularly memorable. It would be true to say that Scotch has never enjoyed choral music of this quality, and Andrew Hunter deserves great acclaim for bringing choral music to this level.

Dr Armstrong’s contribution as Foundation Fellow went beyond merely giving the choirs some extra guidance. His whole philosophy was superbly communicated at the Foundation’s presentation dinner. His work with our choirs and vocal ensembles (and even one session at massed singing) was inspiring for staff and students. We in the music school are enormously grateful to the Foundation, and to the Principal for this initiative.

A week after the festival, the senior instrumental ensembles departed for Music Camp, and the Foundation Day Concert took place a few days later. A very busy term! On 15 October, the Jazz Cabaret was held in the Cardinal Pavilion.

A hugely popular event, the Cabaret featured the Scotch College Show Band, Monday Big Band (beautifully directed by Megan Philip), the Cardinals and the Scotch College Stompers. The special guests for the evening were The Royal Swazi Spa, an eight-piece band specialising in South African traditional and standard repertoire, as well as original work. This amazing ‘African’ ensemble was led by Scotch jazz piano teacher, Howard Belling. Howard has made a remarkable contribution to the genre at Scotch, teaching jazz in his inimitable avuncular style – one of our real departmental treasures! It was a great treat for his students (and everyone else) to hear his superb band. My special thanks to Roger Schmidli for organising the event superbly, as always, ably assisted by our electronic wizard, Glenn Bardwell.

John Ferguson
Director of Music