NEWS

The Music Department has enjoyed its busiest ever summer calendar this year, with events continuing until the very last days of term! Recent highlights have included the Horniman Bandstand Showcase on 30 June, with nearly 80 musicians joining the Wind Band and Odyssey Big Band, as they entertained parents, passers-by and nearly 200 very enthusiastic ...

Oboes help to celebrate Music Week at St. Elphege’s

Some of our musical ensembles are dramatically reduced in size during the summer term as a result of study leave, but the oboe group has shown what magic can be achieved even with a small numbers of players! The group had been invited to perform at St Elphege's School on Wednesday, 22 June ...

"Music binds us in a way that language rarely does". It was Sunday, 1 May when - full of anticipation - we arrived at Atwood House. The occasion was our musical extravaganza evening for retirement home residents during their routine evening get-together. After setting up our musical instruments other karaoke equipment and necessary sound ...

The Grand Finale of House Music 2022 (Young Musician of the Year) took place in the John Jenkins Hall on Tuesday evening. Our adjudicator this year was Claire Cossins (Senior Instrumental Leader for Sutton Music Services), who had the unenviable task of deciding between some outstanding performances.

Our Senior Musician of the Year was awarded ...

The Music Department took to the road on Wednesday with a terrific series of senior vocal recitals at the Mallinson Room in Wallington Library! Year 9 GCSE Musicians joined the adventure, walking briskly to and from Wallington with their energetic teachers, Dr Clayden and Mr Kramer. We enjoyed music by Handel (a range of excepts from Messiah), Schumann, ...

This term has been one of the most exciting and uplifting in the recent history of the music department. Although we have been keen to stage live events safely at every stage of the pandemic, Thursday, 31 March saw our first Spring Concert since 2019 and it had the atmosphere of a great gala event! Along the way this term, the House Music competition ...

The House Music competition is a Wilson's tradition that seems to grow in popularity and quality from year to year. Following last year's entirely online event, we returned to live classes this year, with 236 entrants joining in a series of afternoon performances judged by professional musicians from across London and the UK. There were some exceptional ...

Twenty-eight of our most accomplished musicians in Year 7 gave excellent performances during the Soloists' Evening in the John Jenkins' Hall on Thursday night. A very wide range of performances, from Mozart on the piano to Bernstein on the French horn and Britten on the violin to Deep Purple on the electric guitar, kept a cheerful and enthusiastic ...

On Monday evening the wider school community gathered in the magnificent setting of Croydon Minster for the Wilson's Carol Service. With the events of 2020 having necessitated a slightly different format last year, it was wonderful to see pupils, families, friends, staff, governors, and Old Wilsonians come together again to celebrate. The final preparations ...

This week saw the return of the Year 7 Showcases, two musical extravaganzas that bring together the entire cohort to perform within their individual instrumental and vocal groups, and to play together in a mammoth wind band! The audience were treated to a tour of the orchestra, starting with our young percussionists performing pieces from memory ...

For the first time in nearly two years, a full orchestral concert took place in the John Jenkins Hall on 1 December. With some exciting performances and an excellent atmosphere in the JJ Hall throughout, memories of the hardships of the past couple of years vanished—not least when Dr Clayden took to the stage with his Junior and Senior Wind Bands, ...

Endangered Instrument Scholars

The Sutton Music Service are offering a limited number of scholarships for those looking to learn an instrument (trombone, French horn, tuba, euphonium, oboe, bassoon, double bass and viola). A young person can apply if the following criteria are met:

• attend a state-funded school in the London ...

Twenty-five Year 8 pupils gave accomplished performances during our first live Soloists' Evening of the year on Thursday. With so many excellent performances it is hard to pick out particular highlights, but Joshua's performance of Eugene Bozza's Aria for Alto Saxophone was outstanding, as was Alex's lively rendering of Helen Hopekirk's ...

Year 7 Induction Week

On Wednesday this week, our new cohort of Year 7 students were inducted into our music programme. As part of the Year 7 Music curriculum, every student receives musical tuition in one of the following: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, French horn, trombone, orchestral percussions, or voice. Our instrumental ...

Staff and students at Wilson's were treated to a summery lunchtime treat this Wednesday, as our Year 7 students got together in the sunshine to perform some music. For our Year 7 Choir and Year 7 Wind Band, this was the perfect opportunity to share the items they had been preparing for the Summer Concert, which was sadly cancelled 2 weeks ago. The ...

The build-up to this year's Grand Finale, has been rather different this year. For the first time in House Music history, students entered online, using a whole host of innovative techniques to record their performance, and received their feedback from the judges online. The anticipation for the evening, therefore, was especially high—this particular ...

This year's senior vocal evening, featuring ten of Wilson's most talented singers, was a truly wonderful event. With a broad repertoire, ranging from Torelli to Elgar, Handel to Browne, it had a highly diverse and brilliantly executed programme.

We were all thrilled by the joint performance of four pieces from Vaughan Williams' Songs ...

We are very proud of our peripatetic music team here at Wilson's and encourage all students to take instrumental or vocal lessons. Musical pursuits develop all sorts of invaluable skills, including perseverance, resilience, self-expression, time management, and teamwork. Our peripatetic teachers are now looking ahead to September and have spaces ...

Our musicians here at Wilson's have demonstrated impressive resilience this year as they have grappled with new-fangled methods of rehearsal and very different styles of performance. Every time, they rose to the challenge, producing incredible concerts and recitals--and we now have a robust cohort of Year 7 instrumentalists awaiting their Trinity ...

Wilson's House Music Competition is usually a sight to behold: two weeks of students from across the school come together with myriad instruments to share their musical talents with one another and receive feedback from a panel of external judges. The JJ Hall, the Lecture Theatre, the Bowden Room: they're all bursting with sound, creativity, and ...

On Wednesday, our A level students gave a wonderful recital of solo performances. From Handel's Messiah to the lieder of Schumann and Schubert, from the impressionistic piano music of Debussy to the precarious waltzing of Tomasi's trombone concerto, the boys performed with such sensitivity and imagination, not to mention technical conviction, that ...

Our Music Department pulled out all the stops this week to welcome final year university students from the prestigious Tonmeister Music Recording course to professionally record our fantastic music ensembles. We spent two days in multiple locations to record a Carol Service video and footage for the upcoming Winter Concert. The students from Surrey ...