Grammar Gazette- Issue 2, 2011
grammar gazette SPRING 2011
Moving Opera
During the last week of Term I eighteen students from Girls Grammar and nine from Brisbane Grammar participated in the Moving Opera program. Moving Opera is an initiative of Opera Queensland, offering workshops to schools and students usually over a period of five days. Students attending learn more about voice technique and stage craft in an operatic context and are privileged to be tutored by performing artists, the singing coach and stage director from Opera Queensland. The artists train students in areas critical to stage performance such as memory and cueing through games which also quickly establishes a bond within the group, preparing them to learn to sing as an opera chorus. Two to three choruses from opera covering a range of voice types are then taught and rehearsed with staging gradually incorporated to create a fine presentation of these choruses as they would be seen and heard in an opera performance. The workshops are very intense but the students also have a lot of fun in meeting the challenges and sharing the journey in a group.
On the last night of the term and the final day of the workshop, a short concert performance was held for parents and friends to see the achievements of the students after the twenty hours of workshop across the three day program we chose for our students. The workshop and concert were a great success and an invaluable experience for the students involved.
A winning experience
During the Easter holidays, twenty girls, along with Ms McKean and Mr Pincott spent nine days painting and drawing their way across the landscape of Central Australia. Travelling by bus from their base in Alice Springs, students set off each day with art kits and packed lunches, to highlight destinations such Ellery Creek Big Hole in the West MacDonnell Ranges, the majestic Ormiston Gorge and Standley Chasm. The students created watercolour works, lino prints and drawings. A visit to Uluru and Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) with a walk in the Valley of the Winds provided more spectacular inspiration for the student art and an awareness and appreciation for the Aboriginal culture as well as the power of the landscape in all its detail of plant and animal life. Desert Colours
The 2010 recipient of the Friends of Girls Grammar Bursary was Georgia Hahn. Georgia chose to use her funding on intensive, individual voice lessons with a vocal specialist, Flloyd Kennedy. As well as being a professional singer and vocal coach, Flloyd Kennedy is also widely known as an actor, director and writer, so Georgia was privileged to have both a musical and a theatrical experience! In the eight
one hour lessons that Georgia attended, she studied many areas such as jazz and classical vocal techniques, speech and elocution, and the body’s role when singing. According to Georgia “The precious time I spent with Flloyd was truly an amazing experience—so amazing, I continue to have regular lessons with her.”
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