It is such a joy to have all our students back again to once again fill St Catherine’s with beautiful music. Students from the Early Learning Centre all the way through to Year 12 are busily preparing and rehearsing for their 2020 performances and competitions.

Concerto Concert

The Year 9 Violin Quartet of Christina Wu, Keyue (Karen) Deng, Jo-Jo Patterson and Flora Du are preparing a Vivaldi Concerto for the Concerto Concert on Tuesday 17 March 2020. This concert is a wonderful opportunity for St Catherine’s most experienced musicians to perform substantial works accompanied by the Jorgensen Orchestra. Some highlights to look forward to being Sophie Williams (Year 11) singing an Aria, Catherine Chen (Year 10) performing one of her Licentiate works on piano and an Ian Clarke Flute solo from Julia Thompson (Year 12). Enjoy a short clip below.

Year 7 Welcome

We take great pride in our wonderful singers and students Sarah Pratt and Charlotte Myer welcomed our Year 7 students at St Catherine’s traditional Induction Ceremony, with You Say/Secrets ( Music and Words by Lauren Daigle and One Republic) accompanied by their teacher Andy Dowell. See the short video below.

Viva Voci (Years 9-12)

It is our great pleasure to welcome Ms Juliana Kay to direct our premier choir, Viva Voci. Ms Kay is a highly sought-after choral director and is one of the foremost leaders of innovation and excellence in the Melbourne choral community. She is the founding director of the pioneering Choral Edge choir and is currently assistant conductor of Exaudi Youth Choir and Young Voices of Melbourne.  As one of forty change-makers in music education from around the world to take part in the 2020 Global Leaders Program – an executive graduate course in social entrepreneurship, teaching artistry and arts management – she is a highly regarded composer with several outstanding choral works to her name.

Ms Kay notes the following aspects of singing in a choir “…you work hard for 60 minutes, requiring consistent physical and mental engagement without the distraction of a phone. Singing in choir embodies connection, it bonds you to someone else. Choir repertoire is quality literature, conveying profound sentiments.”

A short video is below of Viva Voci rehearsing Here we lie for St Catherine’s ANZAC Service later in the year.

Mrs Lyn Henshall

We thank Mrs Lyn Henshall for her consistently outstanding direction of Viva Voci. We have been lucky enough to benefit from her enormous wealth of choral experience, tenacious pursuit of excellence and bold innovation over the last two years.  We remember her moving multimedia presentation of If by Michael Nyman for our 2019 Gala Concert and the gorgeous Adonai, Adonenu (Psalm 8) by Dan Forrest at our 2019 Easter Service. Mrs Henshall continues to direct our award-winning Junior School Choir, The Epstein Singers (Years 4 – 6)

I warmly wish all our St Catherine’s students an exciting and rewarding year of music making.