St Pat's winter concert

Last Wednesday and Thursday, Sarra had her school's music winter concert performance. Sarra has been playing the clarinet since grade 3 and it has been something I have really wanted to encourage in the kids because I think reading music is a great skill and an appreciation of music makes for a more well-rounded person and playing an instrument brings self confidence and a sense of accomplishment.

 Westbury Primary School has a great music programme so we have been very lucky to have the opportunity to really capitalise on that and explore a love for music. 

This year in grade 7 at St patrick's College, Sarra continued with private tuition and playing in a school band with the clarinet and halfway through the year, her teacher asked her if she would like a go at the bass clarinet. She absolutely loves it and even though the instrument looks really big and she has to sit on two chairs to play it, it sounds really good. So now she has private tuition at school doing alternate weeks with the clarinet and bass clarinet.

The photo is shocking as it was really dark and the iphone just doesn't cut it but Sarra is second from the right sitting next to her teacher.

I absolutely love the music programme at St Pat's and how wonderful and passionate the music staff are about music and that they go the extra mile to help the students capture their passion. As well as playing in the band with a variety of other instruments, Sarra plays in a clarinet ensemble. They practice once a week at lunch and the teacher makes herself freely available to run this ensemble.

Sarra is sitting second from the right again in this clip, for her ensemble performance.



Sarra is in the development band and will move onto the intermediate band and then finally the concert band. The concert band did the final performance of the night and Simon and I had spent part of the night each outside with Flynn as he was making too much noise and was completely overtired, as the concert went for 2 hours and did not finish until 9pm.

But we were both inside for the concert band's performance and to say it was amazing was an understatement. It sounded brilliant and even Flynn stopped mucking around and sat awestruck by the instruments all working together in harmony. It will be very exciting to watch Sarra grow in experience and practice and move up through the ranks of the music programme.