The Purcell School > News > Weekly Highlights > Weekly Highlights – March 15th

Weekly Highlights – March 15th

Welcome to the latest edition of Purcell’s Weekly Highlights!

Bromley Music Festival

Purcell students took to Bromley Music Festival with great success! Congratulations to Fern Brooks on winning the Sidonie Goosens Cup and 1st Place Medallion and The Clive Morley Prize for her Class Intermediate Recital at The Bromley Music Festival last week! Fern was also entered into the Year 9 – Year 13 Class and won 2nd Place Medallion. A massive well done to Ella Richardson who won the open concerto class and open solo class for violin gaining distinctions in both. She also won the Paget Trophy for her performance. Last but not certainly not least, an incredible achievement from Louis Richardson winning his guitar class with a distinction mark of 94 and winning the Rutter Cup!

Woodley Festival of Music and Arts

Congratulations to Harry Bennett on winning the Under-16 Class and being awarded ‘Outstanding’ for performing Dave Heath’s Saxophone Concerto on his soprano saxophone in the Woodley Festival of Music and Arts. He has also been invited to perform at their Finale Concert at the end of this month!

This Week’s Masterclasses

Our students have been incredible fortunate to have been visited by two renowned musicians; Kyle Horch and Alina Ibragimova. Kyle Horch has been one of Britain’s outstanding musicians and instrumental teachers for nearly thirty years and has won prizes in numerous competitions in Britain, Europe, and the USA. Since making his London debut in 1989 on the Park Lane Group series, he has performed as soloist at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, British and World Saxophone Congresses, and many other venues in Britain and abroad. Performing music from baroque to new commissions on both modern and period instruments, Alina Ibragimova has established a reputation as one of the most accomplished and intriguing violinists of her generation.Highlights among recent concerto engagements include debuts with the Boston Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, returns with the London Symphony, London Philharmonic and Chamber Orchestra of Europe as well as extensive touring in Australia.

Students Learn Self-defence

Following on from a successful first session in February, students have been able to partake in self-defence sessions. “The self-defence class was really helpful, and it taught us techniques that we could easily remember if we ever need to. Even though it was serious it was also really fun!” – Bethany Higgs. “The self defence class was very useful as I learnt many new things as well as it being really fun. I think we should have these classes more often as I feel like they are very important to know” – Nadia Potter.
(No teachers were harmed in the making!)

Purcell takes to the field

Last week Purcell students took part in an intense football match against The Yehudi Menuhin School. With impressive goals on both sides of the pitch, this game will certainly be one for the history books! Well done to all those who took part and thank you to everyone who came down to support.

The Watford Festival of Music, Speech and Drama

Congratulations to Tristan Vermeulen on taking First Place in the Woodwind Intermediate Class at The Watford Festival of Music, Speech and Drama. Tristan also recently took part in a performance in partnership with Awards for Young Musicians. It was a fantastic performance all around and met with nothing but positive praise from the audience!

Reminder to Parents and Guardians

A reminder as we approach exeat weekend that (with the exception of Parents’ meetings for specific year groups), we do ask that students are collected promptly at the end of lessons (16:00) on Fridays and are not dropped off at boarding houses on Sunday afternoons until the published opening time of 18:00. The school is closed at exeat weekends: there are no staff to look after young people and the facilities may on occasion be used by groups which have no connection to the school.