Instrumental Music Program
St Joseph’s Instrumental Music Program commenced in 1993, and the current musical specialist, Mr Donald Smith, has been its director since 1995. The instrumental program is available to children from Grades 3 to 6. It offers an amazing opportunity for children to learn to read and play music - skill which can last a lifetime and has the proven ability to enrich a child’s social and academic life.
The program is based around instruments that constitute a Concert Band -namely flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, euphonium (baby tuba) and percussion (including drums and glockenspiel) and keyboard. Children attend a weekly small group lesson with like instruments (e.g. all clarinets or all flutes) for 25-30 minutes during school time on Mondays. After 12-14 weeks of group lessons, the children have reached a level of musical proficiency that enables all these small groups to come together to form the St Joseph’s Junior Concert Band. At this time, the children still attend their small groups during school time but they also attend an after-school ensemble practice for the whole concert band. At this stage, the band never ceases to amaze with the level of skill and the music they can produce after such a short time.
The children play in Junior Band for the remainder of the year. They then graduate to Senior Band, which is made up of all the children who having been in the programme for one to three years. Last year, this band travelled and performed at a local retirement village, where some of St Joseph’s former staff reside. The concert was pronounced ‘the best they had ever had’ by many of the residents and has resulted in a return invitation for this year. Both bands also participate in school life through assembly performances, concerts for parents, Anzac Day ceremonies and the like.
This is an extra-curricular activity and requires the parents to pay for lessons and provide their child with an instrument (by hiring or purchasing). The school does have some of the larger instruments, such as tenor saxophone, bass clarinet and euphonium, available for lease on a per term basis.