At Bishops we have a busy ensemble program, which is run by the department staff and by the peripatetic teachers.
Orchestra:
The school orchestra rehearses on a Monday morning before school and currently has 33 members from years 7-13. The group performs a wide range of music, as you can see in the videos below, but they accompany the choir’s major oratorio each year. The last three years have been Mozart’s Requiem, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Mozart’s Great Mass in C Major. They will again accompany in May 2025; the piece will be announced very soon.
Big Band:
This group was started in 2021 as the first group to start rehearsing coming out of the covid restrictions. Aimed for those pupils that are Grade 4 and above, they rehearse after school (often this is student led) and perform in all major concerts. Alumni of the band are now studying jazz at Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Birmingham Conservatoire
Bishops Brass is a relatively new group which is run by one of our Brass teachers, Mr. Kevin Smith. This is a group for all standards, with the music being arranged specifically for its members and it continues to grow in numbers and popularity after every performance. They started our recent Christmas concert with a rousing rendition of Queens, I Want to Break Free
Bishops Wind is the newest ensemble in the music department and is run by our newest Peripatetic teacher, Ms. Emma Powell. Like the brass group this ensemble caters for all standards with their performance of A Charlie Brown’s Christmas involving pupils from Prep Test to Diploma Standard
Wind Quintet is an invitational group run by our Oboe and Recorder teacher, Mrs. Rosalie Watson, for the most advanced wind players in the school.
Senior Brass is another invitational group run by Mr. Edney. The group accompanies many of the hymns and carols in assemblies and services. They were formed for the carol service in 2022 and are currently preparing for the upcoming carol service on the 9th December
We always try to end our major concerts with a mass item. The recent Christmas Concert saw over 110 pupils playing and singing Slade’s Merry Xmas Everyone, the video doesn’t quite get everyone in but we think it gives a taste of how we like to bring everyone (audience included) together at the end of our concerts.
