St Cuthbert’s College offers an extensive and comprehensive range of music making opportunities for students in the main genres of Western traditions. Six bands, five choirs, four orchestras, chamber music and percussion ensembles provide sequential choral and instrumental opportunities for students in Year 1 to Year 13. These ensembles enrich the College life with their performances and connect with the wider musical community through playing at festivals and competitions where senior ensembles succeed locally and nationally at the highest level.
The Suzuki programme forms the core of instrumental learning in the junior school with students taking lessons on violin, piano, flute, guitar and cello. The development of the student is nurtured with the involvement of teacher and parent in this method.
A staff consisting of many of Auckland’s leading teachers and performers teaches all major instruments. Tuition Awards are offered annually on various instruments and Performers Evenings are held each term to give students an informal performance opportunity.
Enrichment activities are provided through chamber music in Y7/8 and in the senior school, with chamber music competitions a focus for performance.
Have fun and get involved in some of the many activities on offer.
Sylvia Jiang Representing NZ
Sylvia Jiang, Y11, is the only school student in NZ who has been selected to compete and represent NZ at the Pusaka International Piano Competition in Jakarta, December 2011.
To be selected she had to film and record a piece professionally, a first for Sylvia. Only 12 contestants are chosen for each division in the world, making for very fierce competition. The other chosen contestants in New Zealand are at University level or above, therefore an amazing feat for Sylvia at just 15 years old.
She hopes to gain international recognition in this competition as there will be performers and judges from all over the world. Sylvia will be giving a recital at the Lewis Eady Showroom on Wednesday 23 November, 7pm. Lewis Eady is sponsoring her in the competition and the proceeds from this concert will go towards travelling and staying in Indonesia when she competes.
She is a talented and hard working pianist and has been awarded many prestigious awards including receiving the Alice Cole Piano and IRMT Music Scholarships this year and winning the Rönisch Auckland Secondary Schools’ Piano Competition last year. As a Y10 student in 2010, Sylvia was the youngest person to win the Rönisch competition. In 2009 she came 2nd in the same competition.
Sylvia is a humble and generous student who donated her winnings from the Rönisch Competition in 2009 to the new St Cuthbert’s College Performing Arts Centre, which has just opened.
She believes that playing her music might just change the world, if she can at least make someone smile or inspire someone to play.
Black Watch Chorale Perform with APO
A specially formed group of St Cuthbert’s singers joined the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra on 28 October in a moving performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Auckland Town Hall.
The Black Watch Chorale, directed by Jayne Tankersley, is comprised of about 30 girls from Y6-13. Conducted by the APO’s Principal Guest Conductor and baroque expert, Roy Goodman, the performance starred New Zealand baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes, alto Susan Bickley, and an outstanding group of singers that included the University of Auckland Chamber Choir as well as St Cuthbert’s Black Watch Chorale.
Bach’s St Matthew Passion is a sublime and deeply felt meditation on the passion of Christ, rich with solos and choral passages of profound spirituality.
October 2010