Pupils enjoy annual music festival

The theme of the event this year was a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the very famous tale ‘Alice In Wonderland’ written by Lewis Carroll.

Across the 14 schools that took part approximately 360 children have spent a term and a half working hard in Choir sessions and music lessons to learn the 20 songs which portray the story of this very well-known tale.

‘Alice The Musical’ is a timeless classic musical, by Mark and Helen Johnson, which enabled the children to learn to sing songs in wide variety of different styles.

Some of these were sung in unison, some with complicated harmonies and others in 3 parts. Children from a number of schools read narrations and a few brave pupils sung solos, small group parts and performed the lyrics to one song as a rap with an ostinato vocal accompaniment.

The event was organised by Hils Palmer from Kingslea School, conducted by Emily Barden, Leader of Choirs and Voice in West Sussex and accompanied on the grand piano by Tina Kear, Advanced Skills Teacher for Primary Music at Southwater Junior Academy.

Pupils thoroughly enjoyed rehearsing for this event and were incredibly proud of all that they achieved.

Huge thanks must go to all the staff who worked with their choirs in their own schools, and to all the children who worked so hard to make the event so worthwhile – congratulations on a fantastic performance!

Report and picture contributed by Southwater Junior Academy.