News

William Fong, Head of Keyboard writes: ​Thank you to the Woolf Institute for generously inviting a group of our upper 6th pianists to “An Evening with Sir András Schiff” at Draper’s Hall yesterday evening. It was a poignant occasion, in light of events in Paris over the weekend,  eloquently introduced by the founder director Dr….

Head of Music Technology, Aidan Goetzee, writes: On Monday 15th June, 23 of our Music Technology students visited the Abbey Road Studios.  They toured the legendary Studios 1 and 2 which were being set up for the next day’s recording sessions and watched as world-class recording engineers (including our own ex Music Technology Assistant George…

A big congratulations go to the following students who achieved a Gold, Silver or Bronze score in the National Maths Challenge run by the UKMT (UK Mathematics Trust) for year 10 and 11 students, putting them in the top 40% of the country’s results. All students in these years attempted a challenging set of maths and logic…

On Sunday, pupils from Purcell, Reading School, Berkshire Maestros and Acer Minor came together with the family of Toby Davies to remember him and to perform music by him and for him. It was a very moving occasion. The photo shows some Purcell pupils with Toby’s sister, Charlie, singing one of Toby’s favourite songs.

Congratulations to everyone involved in The Soldier’s Tale – a genuinely collaborative project involving pupils from across the school, including musicians, actors, set designers, painters and puppeteers, all led and directed by the Young People’s Puppet Theatre. The challenges were too numerous to mention, but it has proved to have real educational benefits. Many thanks…

Six finalists have been chosen from the 32 who auditioned for The Purcell School’s Senior Concerto Competition.  The preliminary rounds were held last weekend and the standard was extremely high.  The adjudicator was Jeffrey Sharkey, Principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, who commented “It was such a joy to hear your young musicians perform this weekend…it’s wonderful to see such…

Our artwork of the week is a polyblock print by Maddie from the Juniors.  This term years 5 and 6 have been working on a project about waves, inspired by Japanese artist Hokusai.  This poly print is made by using a different polystyrene tile for each colour, cutting the shape of each wave and layering…

On 23 March, at the end of the Spring Term, our Piano department travelled to Sacile, Italy with students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  This was the School’s third visit to Sacile.  Our young pianists were shown round the amazing Fazioli Piano Factory and gave a concert at the Fazioli Concert Hall.  The programme was entitled Dance! and featured music by Prokofiev, Rachmaninov…

Jacob Collier performing at Ronnie Scotts (photograph from The Guardian) Purcell School alumnus, Jacob Collier was interviewed by Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 2 last week.  You can hear the show here.   Recently hailed by John Lewis in The Guardian as “jazz’s new messiah“, Jacob is making a huge name for himself. Since leaving School,…

Violinist, Joo Yeon Sir will make her debut at the Royal Albert Hall on 30th October 2015 with Sir Karl Jenkins and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a premiere performance of Jenkins’ Lament of the Valley. Joo Yeon recently won the Arts Club Karl Jenkins Classical Music Award, held in association with the radio station Classic FM.  As…