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There
has always been a strong tradition of singing at Ethos We
believe that singing is for everyone and are very keen that as many children
as possible get the chance to sing in choir and for this reason we decided to
try moving the choir from a lunchtime club to before school in September
2007. Although we realise it is not easy for everyone to get up 45 mins
earlier, we have found attendance to be much more regular and the choir very
well supported as children are not having to choose between playing with
their friends, footballs or Scoobies and singing. Repertoire We
tend to have a different emphasis during the different parts of the school
year. In the autumn we focus on singing skills including pitch and
tone, breathing techniques and musicianship with lots of games and rounds to
build confidence and competence in part singing. We like to choose from
a wide range of musical traditions - from British folk songs to world music,
a capella, jazzy, classical and everything in between. In
the spring we tend to choose a cantata and our past favourites include
'Joseph' in 2006, 'Jonah-Man Jazz' in 2007 and 'Swingin' Samson' in 2008.
We hope that many of these are familiar to parents from their own
childhoods as we see singing having a unique role as 'social glue' helping to
form a shared bond across the school and wider community. This year we
are supporting Mrs. Cobbe's Drama club in their production of 'Bugsy
Malone'. As well as choosing our own songs from published sources, Mr.
Lilley has set a wide variety of children’s poetry to music as well as
arranged traditional songs and we performed his versions of Allan Ahlberg's
'Not Now Nigel' and 'The Ghost Teacher' at the assembly to mark the
retirement of our long standing Head and Deputy Sue Romero and Hilary Hladky
in the summer of 2009. Sometimes we participate in larger groups such
as the We
have also sung songs suggested or composed by choir members and are always
open to new material. Out and about We
like to sing in lots of different places for good purposes. We have
sung at the carol service for the East Anglia Children's Hospice EACH in 2007
and 2008 at Great St. Mary's and in 2009 at the church in Rehearsals We
meet in the school hall on Thursdays 8.15-8.55 - promptness is important as
we do the technical skills and warm ups at the beginning (which might seem
like games!) It
is safest to come through the school playground, past the year 6 pods and
into the hall door - please close the door behind you. Shoes, bags and
coats are left at the edge of the hall ready for collection after our
singing. We
expect singers to be attentive and well behaved and to save their voices for
singing! Choir outfits Up
until now the choir have performed in their PE tops on occasions when we want
to have them in uniform, but we have decided the time has come for a special
choir t-shirt. We are looking for designs and suggestions and hope to
have them ready for the end of the spring term. Concerts We
do a concert nearly every term which celebrates the music we have been
learning and the dates for these are in the school dates list and now on the
choir page too. Support Sometimes we need help
with administration, supervising and walking singers to concerts and
stewarding events. If you would like to help, even occasionally, please
could you let the office know and we will be in touch with you. |
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All choir letters are
also posted on: www.parentmail.co.uk.
On parents' behalf, the school subscribes to this service. Registration is
free of charge for mail to be delivered automatically to a chosen email
address. These
documents are in the Adobe PDF format. You will need to have the Adobe Reader
program installed on your computer to read these documents. You can download
this program free of charge from the Adobe web site.
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