Congratulations to Gad's Hill's Musicians

14 musicians from Gad’s Hill took part in the Gravesham Festival of Music and Speech over the weekend. The students from years seven, nine and eleven entered three classes and came home winners in all three.

The school’s percussion ensembles won the ‘Ensemble 18 and Under’ class as well as the ‘Ensemble Open class’ and soloist George Craggs won the ‘Percussion Solo’ class on the Vibraphone.

What was most impressive about the student’s success was that all of the musicians had taken up their instruments only a matter of weeks ago. The adjudicator, Christopher Field, was particularly impressed with George Craggs’ performance commenting, ‘It is hard to believe that George only started to play this instrument seven weeks ago, his performance was polished and excellent both technically and artistically’.

The School's Director of Music, John Stone said ‘I have been working with these students for the last couple of months, many of them had not played an instrument at all prior to joining my classes. I wanted to be able to give them something to aim towards and the Gravesham Music Festival was the perfect opportunity. To come away with three trophies has given them all a huge confidence boost as well as raising the profile of music at Gad’s Hill School. We hope to be able to compete again soon and build on our success’

The two group ensembles consisted of five to eight musicians playing a range of instruments including Keyboards, Claves (small wooden blocks, hit with a wooden stick), Xylophones and Glockenspiels.

The following students took part: George Craggs, Rachel Williams, Kieran Lamb, Christina Acey, Charlotte Ellis, Holly Crowter, Hannah Park, Alice Craggs, Emma Shove, Chloe Wheeler, Jessica Hillocks, Jessica Schweitzer, Ruby Monger, and Rebecca Abbott.