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Westlake Boys’ High School
Musical talent on show at annual competitions
KBB Music Festival
Congratulations to our instrumental groups who competed at the annual KBB Music Festival held at Holy Trinity and St Mary’s Cathedrals in August.The biggest instrumental competition in the country, it runs over five days, involving everything from chamber and symphony orchestras to concert and jazz bands.
Westlake Boys had eight ensembles competing, including three boys-only groups and five combined with Westlake Girls. At the gala concert on Saturday night, our groups were awarded a multitude of awards recognising the talent and hard work put in by these musicians and their directors: • Westlake Symphony Orchestra: Gold award + Best Performance of a Romantic Era Work • Westlake Chamber Orchestra: Gold award + Best Performance of a
Baroque Era Work • Westlake Concert Band: Gold award + Best Performance of a Work written specifically for Concert Band
Westlake Concert Band won Gold at KBBMF.
• Westlake Boys Camerata: Gold award • Westlake Big Band: Silver award • Westlake Boys Symphonic Band: Silver award • Taharoto Orchestra: Bronze award • Westlake Boys Stage Band: Bronze award
Year 13 Choir Leaders Cameron Price, Alex Wilson and William Squire with the Big Sing Finale Awards. Combined Westlake Choir Choralation perform in the Chrischurch Town Hall. Crowd favourites Voicemale at The Big Sign National Finale.
NZCF Big Sing Finale
After two years of disappointment with the NZCF Big Sing Finale being cancelled, Christchurch hosted the event for the first time since 2007.
Of the almost 250 choirs that entered from throughout New Zealand, only the top 24 are selected for the Finale, with three of those being our Westlake premier choirs.
Our boys’ choir Voicemale were rewarded with a silver award, while our combined choir with Westlake Girls, Choralation won gold.
Voicemale’s performance of Sondheim’s “Everybody Says Don’t” was definitely a crowd favourite, complete with a small band and
Young Jazz Band-It Competition
To round off our successful term of music-making, our combined school Big Band is attending the national finals of a new jazz band competition, the ‘Young Jazz Band-It’. Bands from around New Zealand entered, with the top 10 selected for the national final.
The Westlake Big Band is the only Auckland group making the trip to the finals, which takes place on Saturday 1 October at Victoria University, Wellington. As part of their preparation for the final, they are taking part in a musical exchange with Tawa College, who are also finalists. The students are really looking forward to spending time together as a band and finishing a busy term with some fun musicmaking! rainbow umbrellas – perhaps you saw it feature on One News? Meanwhile Choralation had the audience well and truly laughing with their interpretation of the experimental Korean song “Pal-So-Seong” which explores the various vocal sounds made by laughing.
The national composition competition winner, Arts Captain William Squire also had his piece ‘Flames’ premiered at the gala concert, with text by Hunter Haynes. It was thrilling for all our Westlake singers to experience the buzz of Finale and make new friends with singers from all around the country.
Winter Sport Success
The first winter tournament week since 2019 saw a number of Westlake Boys teams competing around the country in regional and national events with some outstanding results.
After victory in the Auckland Premier Boys Hockey competition, 1st XI team competed in the NZSS Rankin Cup held on the North Shore with the top 32 hockey schools from around the country. After successfully topping their pool, the team progressed to the knockout matches where they defeated Palmerston North Boys 4–0 then Tauranga Boys 4–0 in the quarterfinal, setting up a semi-final against Super 8 Champions New Plymouth Boys High School. New Plymouth Boys scored the only goal in the first half, but Westlake turned it on in the second half scoring five unanswered goals to advance to the national decider against St. Andrew’s College of Christchurch. The final was a showcase of defence at both ends, preventing either team from a making a breakthrough. The match eventually went to a shootout after no score in regulation time, where the Westlake goalkeeper saved 3 of the 4 St. Andrew’s chances while the Westlake strikers completed their task, an exciting conclusion in front of a passionate Westlake crowd.
The local boys were crowned national champions for the third time, their first since 2015. This completed an unbeaten 2022 campaign, 35 wins and one draw. The 1st XI have now lost just one match in the last three seasons.
The 2nd XI team completed a fantastic week for Westlake Hockey with an unbeaten run at the national 2nd XI Galletly Cup, where they too won a shootout in the final, against Timaru Boys.
The Westlake Premier Badminton team embarked on another national campaign in Wellington, attempting to continue the recent success of this team at the national level. The team of Hugo Chou (captain), Anthony Prajogo, Eric Zhong, Jaden Lei Mingoa, Ronnie Lam and Leo Yang once again excelled at this event and remained unbeaten across eight games in four days to achieve the fifth straight national badminton title for Westlake. An outstanding achievement.
Westlake Boys Rugby took some giant leaps in 2022. After a standout season, the Under 15A side finished agonisingly short of claiming the Auckland Under 15 title, falling just shy of King’s College in the final. They followed this up with an impressive week at the Under 15 National Invitational tournament in Christchurch, progressing to the final against local favourites Christchurch Boys. In the decider, Westlake led for much of the contest, but Christchurch Boys scored deep into injury time and converted for a 22–20 win. A heart-breaking end to wonderful year for the players and coaching group.
Following the Under 15A achievements, the Westlake 1st XV marched on from their 36–24 victory over Manurewa High School in the North Harbour 1A final to take on Auckland 1A champions Kelston Boys in the Blues Regional Final. In a close and hard fought encounter Westlake emerged with a 23–20 victory over the highly favoured Kelston, and in doing so qualified as the Blues representative at the National Top 4 for the first time. This was a moment treasured by so many connected to Westlake Boys rugby, both past and present. Just four days later, the team travelled to Palmerston North for the national finals and had the task of taking on regular top four attendees Napier Boys High School in the semi-final. On the day, Westlake could not contain the start by Napier Boys and were reeling 19-0 after only a few minutes. This was a difficult score to bridge, but the team regrouped well, and the remainder of the match was a tighter affair, final score 40–17 to Napier Boys. Two day later, Westlake Boys took on South Island champions John McGlashen College from the Highlanders region. The proud Westlake group re-established themselves as worthy attendees with a 36–22 victory, claiming third place in the country to end an unprecedented season.
Other team successes during winter tournament week included Premier Table Tennis finishing secondnd in New Zealand at the national school finals and the Junior Football team claiming the Hillsdene Tournament title.
