Orchestra Day

On Sunday 15^th October, we held a fantastic Orchestra Day at Wycliffe, welcoming guests from the Capriol Chamber Orchestra and Stroud Symphony Orchestra, along with visiting young musicians from local schools.  Under the expert leadership of conductor Jon Trim, we worked together to learn to play an arrangement of Holst’s ‘The Planets Suite’ in less than three hours, then giving a concert performance at the end of the day.

We started the afternoon with a full rehearsal all together as an orchestra of 65 players, and then broke into small sectional rehearsals across the campus to work on the more challenging parts of the music, before coming back together once again.  Each young musician had an older experienced player working alongside them, and pupils learned so much from the experience of playing as part of an orchestra.

Everyone should be incredibly proud of what they achieved and how hard they worked to be able to put together such a strong performance of ‘The Planets’ for family and friends.  We would like to say a huge “thank you” to Jon Trim, and the Stroud Symphony Capriol Chamber Orchestras, along with Mrs Taylor, Mr Parker, Dr Toumpoulidis, Miss Orsman and Miss Hill for their help and expertise.  Thank you also to Steve Legge and Matt Kingston at the University of the West of England for providing us with the special arrangement of the music.

It was a super day, enjoyed by all, and we look forward to hosting similar music days for Wycliffe and visiting musicians to work together in the future.