Music

If music be the food of love …

Well, it seems it might be, judging by the number of girls learning instruments, playing in groups and the orchestra or singing in the choirs.

The separate Music House (opposite the main school) has 34 practice and teaching rooms. Most are equipped with piano - acoustic or electronic. In the two main teaching rooms there are video, TV, audio and a single-manual harpsichord. A separate room contains the computer equipment (network PCs with Sibelius for Windows) etc.. There is a clavichord and two-manual tracker action Walker pipe organ in the Chapel, as well as a 7' grand piano. A music laboratory of 12 keyboards is available for class music lessons taught up to Year 9 (Upper 4).

Over half the girls in College learn one or more instruments and examinations of the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music, preparatory, Grades 1-8, to Advanced Certificate are taken in College by up to fifty girls each term. A few girls go on to take diplomas of the London colleges as well.

Syllabuses in GCSE (AQA) Music, and Music at AS and A2 Level (AQA) are followed. Past pupils have gone on to study music at Chetham's, Royal Northern, Birmingham Conservatoire, Scottish Academy, and universities at Sheffield, Hull, Durham, Edinburgh and Cambridge (choral scholars). One is now a viola player in the Hallé, another is in the Glyndebourne chorus and another was a member of the BBC Singers.

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