What Will I Study?
The three disciplines studied at A-level are performance, composition and appraising. These provide an all-round musical education that appeals to all types of musicians. The set pieces for study give a breadth of musical understanding and open up new genres and ideas.
All pupils have the chance to join a variety of ensembles and there are many performing opportunities from the larger scale orchestral and choral works to more intimate chamber music and solo performances. There are also opportunities to try new musical skills. Conducting and arranging are popular, and some pupils discover a new talent for a different instrument.
Music at King's
Performing, composing and listening are the fundamental principles that underpin all music-making. Throughout a student's time at King's, the music department strives to bring out the best of all these elements.
Students can use musical software in the new Mac suite to enhance their understanding, and there are regular opportunities to perform, from the informal setting of the classroom to larger school concerts.
Those who choose to go on to study music after Sixth Form have the option to specialise as a performer or study a more academic music course. The skills required and developed as a musician are highly sought after by most employers. Many music graduates go on to have successful careers both in and out of the music world, finding that the self-discipline, confidence and analytical skills developed through musical study stand them in good stead for the future.
The department is supported by a number of part-time music teachers, many of whom are musicians, coming from a wide musical background, from opera to rock and classical to West End musicals.
Facilities
The music department is open all day and consists of practice and teaching rooms, a recording studio, a recital room equipped with a Yamaha C3 grand piano, and several computer rooms that allow access to the departmental sound library and various musical software packages.
The Chapel has a fine two-manual tracker action organ, a Yamaha C7 grand piano and a marvellous acoustic. A superb Yamaha C5 grand piano has been installed in the Woodard Room and a Mac suite of computers enable pupils to produce top quality music using the very latest software and realise how exciting creating your own music can be.
Performances
Tours to other venues at home and abroad contribute to the varied musical life of King's; the choir has toured Venice and Barcelona where they sang in cathedrals and various other magnificent churches; the jazz band have for many years, visited prep schools throughout the region and toured further afield to places such as Jersey and Barbados.
The opportunity to perform in school musicals and events is plentiful, and pupils also enjoy taking part in rock and pop evenings as well as choir services, jazz evenings and other ad hoc performances .
What's on Offer?
There is as much music being taught, rehearsed and performed as could be imagined. In a normal week, if there is such a thing, the chapel choir could be in Chapel rehearsing for the weekly service or Choral Evensong in a cathedral.
The wind band, jazz bands, string orchestra and symphony orchestra all have rehearsals in preparation for the many concerts that are performed in various venues around the school, and various rock, pop, indie, metal and fusion bands are using the recording studio to lay down their latest tracks.
Concerts, Groups and Orchestras
There are concerts of all sorts of music taking place in school throughout the year, in the music school Octagon, the Woodard Room, the theatre or the Chapel. Each acoustic complements the music performed, which ranges from full orchestral works with choir to intimate solos.
Regular Octagon concerts give performers of all standards the chance to gain confidence in performance in a really supportive atmosphere which everyone enjoys, including the performers. Orchestra, string orchestra and wind band have their own programmes of material that are presented in larger concert venues, and rock and pop musicians also have several concerts to demonstrate their skills with full lighting and sound rigs.
String quartets, jazz combos, flute trios and saxophone groups all contribute to a thriving chamber music scene, and there are plenty of ad hoc groups that get together for various projects.