BIS Secondary, Composer of the Month

BIS Secondary, Composer of the Month:

Phyllis Tate

(1911 - 1987)

Phyllis Tate was one of the most prominent British composers of the 20th century.  Her music was widely performed during her lifetime and received great critical acclaim.  She is known for using unusual instrumental textures and combinations in her output.

BIOGRAPHY

Phyllis Tate was born in Buckinghamshire, the daughter of an architect.  She was excluded from primary school at the age of 10 for singing a rude song at the end of the year.  She taught herself how to play the ukulele and was discovered in 1928 by composer Harry Farjeon, who prompted her to receive formal music training.  She then studied composition, timpani, and conducting at the Royal Academy of Music.

Tate’s musical output was extensive and varied.  Her fascination with musical textures led her to explore the potential of unusual instruments and combinations, including the celeste, bass clarinet, accordion, lute and harmonica. These were often used alongside her other lifelong musical passion, the human voice, in settings of poems from which she gained much inspiration. 

Phyllis Tate was highly respected by contemporary musical peers for her unique sensitivity to musical colour and fastidious craftsmanship.  Many critics commented on her originality and refusal to go along with fashionable trends of music of the time.

Tate was very self-critical, and destroyed all of her compositions from before the mid 1940s.

SELECTED WORKS

Concerto, for saxophone and strings (1944);
Songs of Sundry Natures (1945);
Nocturne, for four voices (1945);

The Lady of Shalott, for solo tenor and instruments (1956);
London Fields, orchestral suite (1958);
The Lodger, an opera (1960);
A Secular Requiem: The Phoenix and the Turtle (1967);
St. Martha and the Dragon (1976);
All The World’s A Stage, for chorus and orchestra (1977);
Prelude-Aria-Interlude-Finale, for clarinet and piano (1981).

The Kodo Drummers

Musician of the Month

The Kodo Drummers

Kodo is a professional Taiko Drumming group based in Japan. They were formed in 1981 and have performed over 4000 times all over the world.

In Japanese the word "Kodo" has two meanings: "heartbeat" which is the primal source of all rhythm and, read in a different way, the word can mean "children of the drum".

There are about 30 performers in the Kodo group. Drummers who hope to be performers spend two years living and training on Sado Island. After this, those who have been selected to become members spend one more year training and practicing before they may be selected to become full members of Kodo.

Check out them in action:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqjMBr8BuU0

Primary Young Musician of the Year 2018

ABC International School, BVIS and BIS came together to celebrate the musical gifts in our Primary Young Musician of the Year Competition 2018.

Children from across ABC International School, BVIS and BIS have all taken part in first round auditions, semi-finals and then on Tuesday 16^th October they took part in the final for the Young Musician Competition, an annual celebration of music from our younger soloists.                                                                                                                                                    The Primary Young Musician of the Year 2018 Competition has grown this year to include our sister FOBISIA school ABC. The competition started with only BIS almost 8 years ago, we added BVIS in 2016 and this year invited ABC International School to join the celebration of music. Each child has had to go through two rounds of auditions to make it to the grand finale, which was held on Tuesday 16^th October in the BIS Secondary Theatre. From the first to the last round nearly three hundred children have taken part across the three schools but only fifteen made it to the final performance. Our judges, Ms Georgina Hardiman (Head of Secondary Music at BVIS), Mr Gareth Groves (Head of Visual and Performing Arts at ABC) and Mr Ian Alexander (Director of Music at BIS), had a challenging decision to make and had many conversations about who should win the prestigious title of Young Musician of the Year 2018.

Our young performers excelled on the piano, guitar, ukulele, violin and cello and for the first time ever, the kit drum too. We heard music from Schubert, Handel, Mozart and Shostakovich. Our audience was thrilled to also hear music from our two previous winners Anya Chakrabarty from 2016 playing on her violin and Caitlin Chua from 2017 performing confidently on her cello. A huge well done to our finalists: Wei Jie (Bon) Ng, Bao Quyen (BQ) Nguyen, Bach LUU, Bach LUU, Tuong Anh Ngo, Harry Zhang, Quang Hien (Henry) Bui, Lilly Lee, Zhen Yang Chew, TaeHwan Shin, Catherine Ko, and Duc Tri Tran. These young performers have worked incredibly hard to get to this final stage of the competition and have also shown wonderful musicianship in their support of each other. Special congratulations go to our top three performers who this year are; Khang Nguyen (ABC) who came third and performed a solo on the kit drum; Dolly Nguyen (BIS) who came second overall and performed expertly on the piano; and our winner of the 2018 Young Musician of the Year Competition Johnny Nguyen (BIS) who performed the very mature and emotional piece of Nocturne in C# minor by Chopin.

Well done to everyone who’s taken part and I look forward to hearing many more entries again next year. Thank you to all those who have supported and hopefully we can continue to share in the delights of our children as they continue to grow as marvellous musicians.

Click here to see more photos from the event.

Video of the week

Wow, I love this so much. Proof that you don't always need expensive instruments to make amazing and innovative music. Unbelievable talent!!

7V Strings Performance

Well done to 7V who have only been learning their chosen string instrument since September. Have a listen to our class performance below. What do you think?

Primary Young Musician 2018

Well done to all of our Young Musician competitors this year. We had nearly 70 children audition in the first round and 14 children audition in the semi-finals with only 6 going through the grand final. Check out our photos below to see who took part and how professional everyone looks. Good job everyone, a lovely few weeks of solo performing. 

I hope to see lots of you again soon to play in the Juniors Whole School Assembly. Why not come and see our grand final on Tuesday 16 October?!

Click here to see photos from the first round of auditions.

Click here to see photos from the semi-finals.

Video of the week

Another amazing video from "Playing for Change." How many instruments from how many countries can you identify??