Music in School
Music in School MUSIC IN SCHOOL 2021/21 With COVID-19 restrictions in place, many rehearsals were unable to resume but a bunch of intrepid pupils in Chamber Choir, Senior Traditional Group and Senior Strings attempted to rehearse in a socially distanced manner. Rehearsals resumed every morning and Friday lunch-time and in no time at all we had learnt a couple of pieces for Prize Day. However, the country was soon plunged into an extended two-week Hallowe’en break and Prize Day was moved online, so we decided to save those pieces for a performance at a later date.
Department. After one week of lunch-times without any rehearsals, I started going slightly insane. I am especially sorry to miss the Spring Concert of this year’s MVI – Eve H, Aoife O’H, Ronan, Matthew, Ellie, Megan, Ella, Erin McQ, Anna, Kate, Aoife A, Emma, Louise, Roan, Giulia, Eve P-W, Nicole, Rebecca and Cuann (apologies to anyone I’ve forgotten). It promised to be a fabulous concert. I will have fond memories of you all for a long time and I hope you continue to enjoy performing music in your chosen path. M.M.M.
After Halloween we turned our attention to the forthcoming Carol Service in Belfast Cathedral. With no congregation being allowed to attend, we took the decision to record the service during the day and post it online at 7pm that evening (when the Carol Service would normally happen). Belfast Cathedral was a wonderful acoustic to perform in although it was incredibly weird performing to absolutely no one. The Chamber Choir sang the usual festive stalwarts with Stuart Knox (Form 2) opening the service with the first verse of Once in Royal David’s City. Ms Maebh Martin and Callum Whiteside (V) were the organists for the occasion. The Senior Strings performed a Christmas Carol medley and the Senior Trad performed the Wexford Carol with Ronan Poots playing the uilleann pipes solo. Many thanks must go to Ronan who kept Senior Trad going throughout a very difficult year. I naively assumed that there would be some form of online Spring Concert in March 2021, but with the announcement on 30th December that schools would not re-open after the Christmas break, I quickly realised that this would not happen. Once schools reopened in March 2021, we set about recording the GCSE, AS and A2 practicals, before the students sat their final track exams. What a strange year that was! I missed musicmaking terribly and the banter in the Music 87
