Our well-staffed and well-resourced department offers boundless
opportunities to all girls who have an interest in music. We have
five class-teachers and twenty-one visiting instrumental and vocal
specialists. We are able to offer tuition in every brass band and
orchestral instrument, percussion, guitar, piano, organ and voice.
Visiting artists provide music workshops at all key-stages.
In the Senior School there are instrumental ensembles and choirs
for every age and level of ability: Intermediate and Joint
Orchestras, Junior, Intermediate and Senior Concert Bands, Jazz
Band, Guitar, String and Percussion ensembles, Intermediate and
Senior Flute Ensembles, Clarinet and Saxophone groups, Senior
Choir, Middle School Choir and two Chamber choirs: Middle School
and Senior, the latter having performed with the Manchester
Camerata, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and performed on many European
tours. A number of these choirs and ensembles perform jointly with
the Boys' Division, on a regular basis, in major concerts and
events throughout the year. The outreach of our music-making
extends to parents, past pupils, staff and governors in an annual
choral event, in which major works are performed with an orchestra
and professional soloists.
Throughout the academic year, a wide range of performing
opportunities are available and every choir and ensemble perform in
at least two concerts per year. There is an annual Year 7 concert
in which every Year 7 pupil performs. Our Music Department is
eclectic and inclusive; we like every pupil to participate in
public musical events. We have concerts for soloists and all our
ensembles perform on a regular basis.
Many musical events take place beyond the school day; in June
2009, the Girls' and Boys' Divisions combined for a gala concert in
Manchester's Bridgewater Hall in which over 650 musicians and
singers performed. Other concerts include those for the local
community, music weekends at Patterdale Hall and overseas tours to
Tuscany, Chartres, Flanders, Barcelona, Venice, Prague, Paris and
Vienna.
We extend a warm invitation to anyone who wishes to attend any
of our concerts. Recent programmes have included: the Bruch Violin
Concerto, Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, Schubert's 'Unfinished
Symphony', Mozart's, Faure's and Rutter's Requia, Mozart's
'Coronation Mass', Rutter's 'Gloria', Handel's 'Messiah' and
Haydn's 'The Creation'.