Mrs Eacott and Mrs Casling, Heads of Music

Our first group of Year 7s have just finished their 10-week taster course on the clarinet with Mr Cooper and have done amazingly well. Congratulations to everyone. Looking forward to seeing how this will now develop in the future. Our next taster clarinet group begins in January 2025. 

Mrs Casling, Head of Music

Mrs Casling, Head of Music  

Year 8 ~ Gospel Workshop   

In October, in line with Black History Month and their Blues diploma, Year 8 were offered an incredible opportunity to perform with gospel singers and instrumentalists from Soul Sanctuary Gospel Choir. Each form had a 50-minute workshop with Clarence, the vocal leader for the day, and was taught one part from an uplifting song. The Senior Choir and members of the ACS were then given an extended workshop in the afternoon and together, with Year 8, a massed performance was put on in assembly the very next day. The sound was incredible and the enthusiasm of some of the students was infectious. 

Congratulations to Senior Choir!    

I just wanted to say a huge congratulation to Senior Choir and Rob Humphries, who did the school proud, performing 6 times over the course of the three open mornings. Well done to all of you, you sounded great!

Year 7 concert   

October 23rd saw the first of the music department concerts, with the whole of Year 7 performing once again as an entire year group. With the usual medleys bookending the concert and some excellent class performances, we were spoilt with such a lovely array of singing, all of which was accompanied by our Year 10 band. In between the performances, we had three brave soloists - Aryan Garg, Isida Manolakou and Imogen Liddington - who each performed beautifully to the 450-strong audience in the room. Well done to everyone involved!

Mrs Eacott, Head of Music

On Saturday 12th October, Mia Nguyen (Year 11) was invited to perform with the Greenwich Concert Band in their concert entitled 'Stage and Screen' as their guest soloist.  Mia performed the famous violin theme from the film 'Schindler's List' and did a fantastic performance, with so many compliments from the audience.

Well done Mia on a fantastic performance. It was a pleasure to watch. 

Mrs Casling, Head of Music

Congratulations to all the cast and crew on an amazing 4 nights. The quality of the performances was simply amazing, and we are still receiving compliments from audience members about just how amazing it was.

All the hard work paid off! The Mayor of Bexley who attended the Gala Night performance had nothing but high praise for all involved and the final night was full of heartfelt messages to and from our Year 13 leavers.

Now... what shall we do next year?!

Click on the link here to view the Legally Blonde Photo Gallery. 

Mrs Casling, Head of Music

Congratulations to all the students (52 in total!) who took their ABRSM or Trinity exams at BGS this week (10th-12th July). As I write, the exam results from the Trinity exams are in and are FANTASTIC!

A particular mention to Ben and Nuno from Year 7, who both achieved their Grade 1 clarinet exams having come through our clarinet taster programme in the Autumn Term at the start of Year 7 with Mr Cooper.

To make such progress in less than one year is excellent. 

We had 4 students taking either Grade 7 or Grade 8 on their instruments, which is such a fantastic achievement, the youngest being Giulia M-B and Emily H, both in Year 9. 

It was also lovely to welcome in 17 external students who took their exams with us at BGS, and we look forward to hopefully seeing them at BGS when they choose their secondary school choices! Lovely to make those connections with our surrounding primary schools. 

Mrs Casling, Head of Music

Then the jazz began. An epic three hours of repertoire, rehearsed and performed separately by Junior Jazz, Big Band and Improv Group. The talent displayed on stage was astounding and the joy that the students felt was evident in their playing; they were exuding musicality! And it didn’t stop there, with the final numbers being performed by a hybrid of past and present students all performing at once (at one point, we didn’t know whether we would have enough amps or music stands to go around!) The sound was incredible and fully appreciated by the pizza-eating audience that had gathered to support this event. It was hugely memorable and both highly enjoyable and sad in equal measure for those who have worked closely with Jez. His presence will be missed dearly but his legacy and all that he has done in the music department - and the school as a whole - will live on! Thank you for everything.

Mrs Eacott, Head of Music

Mrs Goddard, Music Department

Following the advertisement placed in one of the school newsletters, I saw an opportunity to apply for the overture day with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. About 70 young musicians came together (including me on trumpet!) to rehearse in St Luke's, Old Street, London, and perform a range of challenging musical pieces. Overall, I really enjoyed this opportunity and I would recommend it to anyone who gets the chance.

James Boyd, Year 10

Congratulations to all our students (some who were blocked by instruments, so I couldn't get a good photo!) who performed as part of the Bexley Music Festival on Monday 25th March at Fairfield Halls in Croydon. Daniel, Aaron, Eve, Krish, Yannis, Zara, James and Max. Max Jansen performed an outstanding solo and our students were in ensembles including the concert orchestra, little big band and many others including the house band for the evening. For Max and Eve, this marked the end of their time with Bexley Music before they leave for university. Well done all; a thoroughly enjoyable concert. 

Click on the link here to view the Bexley Music Festival 2024 Photo Gallery.

The Music Department

The Samba Band started with a drumline composition, ‘Cadence 24’, and showed even more excitement and development of their skills as an ensemble. They worked hard with Mr Pack, our drum teacher, and it was a rousing start to the programme. KS3 Orchestra followed, with a collaboration with St Stephen’s Catholic Primary School with ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, followed by Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’. Rob Humphreys, Year 12 music prefect, conducted the collaboration and was excellent in his debut. Clarinet Choir, led by Mr Cooper, performed ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, with Max Jansen performing the iconic opening solo. Chamber Choir followed, with Mrs Casling directing ‘Grace Kelly’ and ‘Big Yellow Taxi’. Chamber Choir will soon be performing at Bexleyheath Christchurch with Grace Kelly in April. We will confirm all the details soon - please catch them then!  Junior Jazz performed Green Onions and Blue Train with Mr Laing, followed by Flute Choir and Mrs Casling performing ‘Colours of the Wind’ and ‘Ecstasy of Gold’. The final performance of the first half was with Junior Choir, where they performed ‘True Colours’ and ‘Firework’ enthusiastically to see us out.

The second half was introduced with the Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mrs Casling, with performances of ‘Mr Blue Sky’ and highlights from ‘Wicked’. Having just returned from a trip to Wicked as well, you couldn’t stop some of our students from joining in singing. The String Group with Miss Todd performed ‘Greensleeves’ and ‘Seven Nation Army’, with Rock Band under Mr Ross following up with Led Zeppelin’s ‘Black Dog’ and Rainbow’s ‘Since You Been Gone’. Senior Choir allowed a moment for reflection with ‘Fields of Gold’ before ramping up the temp again with Pink’s ‘So What?’, featuring soloists Emily Chan, Teondra Imurni and Holly Kinsella. Improv performed Happy Purple and Blue Sky’s, followed by Big Band’s ‘Afro Blue’ and ‘Tangerine’, featuring Zara Warren singing. The evening concluded with a massed ABBA Gold medley performance, with all the audience invited to participate.

Every Spring Concert is a chance for us to thank our Y13 students for all their hard work and contributions over the years. We wish you all success in the future and keep in touch. We also announced our fundraising drive for a new acoustic piano. Details of the fundraising drive have been shared with you all on ParentPay, and we hope that you can help us in improving our piano stock across the department over the next year.

It was a privilege to see all of our performers on stage and enjoying what they do best - making music. We still have many more events to come, including the KS3 Showcase, Legally Blonde and Jazz Evening - keep an eye on the newsletter for further information!

Click on the link here to view the Spring Concert 2024 Photo Gallery.

Mrs Goddard, Head of Music

Congratulations to Ella Tyler for her participation in the Bromley Music Festival with the following results:

• 1st for woodwind grade 4-5
• 1st for piano light music/jazz Year 9-13 
• 4th for violin in the grade 6/7 category

An amazing achievement for Ella. Congratulations from the BGS music department. Having the opportunity to perform and receive advice from industry professionals is always an amazing experience!

Mrs Casling, Music Department 

Aysu, Year 7, said that it was lots of fun to play with another group of instrumentalists and to work under the leadership of Rob Humphreys, Year 12, who has been conducting the orchestra there as part of his CAS IB portfolio.

We looked at little parts of the piece to rehearse these more as well as how to demonstrate a professional performance. We are looking forward to hosting St Stephen’s at our concert on Monday 18th March and to performing our piece together.

Mrs Goddard, Head of Music

Ethan Abbate, Year 12

Well done to all of our performers on this evening, and a huge thank you to Mr Laing for preparing the items with the bands. What a treat and I hope that we can make this a biannual thing!

Mrs Goddard, Head of Music

The orchestra performed Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody and the magnificent Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz. It was truly amazing by all accounts, and so impressive that a young ensemble overall performed with such maturity and sensitivity whilst also being able to react as emerging professionals of their fields.

Mia's friends also came to support her performance, and were thoroughly impressed. They reported:

Mia performing with the LSSO, let alone at the Barbican Centre, makes us so proud of her; we were so amazed by the performance they gave us, and it was such a good experience. We were even more surprised to find out that she was one of the younger students there, considering she played at such a high standard. We hope to attend another one of her amazing performances.

Ayaka and Darina

 Well done Mia on grasping such a wonderful opportunity, and we look forward to hearing more for you and our other music students!

Mrs Goddard, Head of Music

An amazing achievement. 

Mrs Casling, Head of Music

Mrs Casling, Head of Music

The Beckenham festival is an annual music festival which carries out a wide variety of performances and competitions with different types of musicians (e.g. choirs, woodwind players).  The type of competition I entered is music versatility, which is recommended for people who play two or more instruments to a high level.  The adjudicator marks the pieces you play/ sing and the person with the highest amount of marks wins the Martin Dales trophy (which I’ve managed to win three years consecutively now).  This year, I played Nocturne in C# Minor by Chopin, and Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano by Malcolm Arnold.

Nathan Singleton, Year 11