The Bright Sparks concert on Monday 27 January
Two Year 10 students from Oathall Community College recently performed on stage with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) at the Royal Festival Hall.
Nathanael Thomas-Atkin and Dominic Clark both play with the West Sussex County Orchestra and they were invited to join the world-renowned LPO for the latest in their series of ‘Bright Sparks’ concerts.
Scrooge wakes up to a bright new day!
If you missed the performance of A Christmas Carol last week or just want a reminder of this marvelous show you can see a selection of pictures taken on our Flickr pages or by clicking on this picture below.
Many thanks to everyone who bought raffle tickets, refreshments or entered the chocolate tombola.
We raised a fantastic sum of £2000!
Magenta preparing for some Carols in the Barn!
Oathall Community College has held its annual Carols in the Barn event on Thursday 12 December.
In the days running up to it farm staff and student volunteers decorated the barn with lights and other festive trimmings while a large Christmas tree generously donated by Balcombe Estates provided a spectacular centrepiece.
Past and present students, parents, staff and members of the local community packed into the barn for a cold but magical start to Christmas. Under the watchful eye of the animals a selection of traditional and religious readings were given and music students raised the roof with renditions of lots of festive favourites.
Oathall music students were once again invited to participate in the fabulous orchestral day at Ardingly College. Music students joined up with other schools in the area to take part in workshops with members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. This was a unique opportunity for our young musicians to learn from and play with top professional orchestral musicians. The day culminated in a public performance of the works studied during the day in the beautiful chapel at Ardingly College.
Well, we all made it home safely after our fun-filled, musical, Spanish experience! Sorry that we weren’t able to post much whilst we were away but here are a few photographic memories of our trip. Thanks to Emma, Gemma, Miss Driscoll and Mrs Godbolt for their photographs.
UPDATE! See more photos in our Flickr gallery here
Click on this website to hear excerpts of the music from our composing project performance of “Where The Wild Things Are” with Ensemble Reza, and read about our involvement in it.
http://ensemblereza.com/oathallwildthings/
Working out the rhythm!
Students from local primary schools joined students from Oathall Community College in raising the roof with their beautiful performance of Emile Sande’s “See Beneath You’re Beautiful” accompanied by members of the school orchestra and special guest, cellist Hannah Carter.
This was followed by the energetic Afro Blues rendition of “Obatala” arranged specially for the event by Martijn Van Galen. Head of Vocal Studies for West Sussex, Emily Barden, led the two hundred and fifty voice choir including an inspirational performance “Oh My Day”, which was beautifully sung in three parts. We admired the talents of all the young performers and especially those who stood up on stage with the senior students to lead the performances and the young man who played the keyboard.
You can listen to the performances via the link below. We hope that you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it!
Oathall’s Big Sing 2013 – See Beneath Your Beautiful 1
On Friday 7 December, Oathall students in years 7 to 10 entertained residents at Balcombe Place Care Home with a set of Carols and Christmas songs. The elderly residents also took part and sang along with the students. Students were rewarded with a Christmas tea and an invite to return and sing at anytime.
Listen here to Oathall students singing ‘O Holy Night’
Oathall students can be also heard on BBC radio Sussex singing ‘O Holy Night’ on Tuesday 11 December at around 15:40. Mrs Mac Taggart submitted this recording of ‘O Holy Night’ to the BBC after they put out a request for schools and community choirs to submit recordings of Christmas music to be played every day in the run up to Christmas. Oathall was one of the schools to have been selected.
Year 11 student, Clara Hurtado is through to the Regional Final Showcase of Open Mic UK on 9 December in Portsmouth.
See Clara sing at the Brighton final.
The Regional Final Showcase includes all the best unsigned acts in the region in a showcase to judges which in the past have included national radio, regional press, BBC Introducing, record labels & celebrity judges (with judges getting more prestigious as the competition progresses) as well as a huge live crowd! (more…)
