Musicians Hub Academy Days

I am really enjoying my senior academies, they are pumping. My students are managing themselves and motivated (for the most part) to finish their work and achieve their goals and assessments. The class environment is really good too, I took some photos of them at work this week. 

One level one student helping another with a music technology task

Two students working on a composition- one working on the 

beat/backing track and one writing lyrics

Two students practicing their raps for solo performance

Music Further Studies

On Sunday the 3rd of September 8 students headed down to Wellington to visit Whitireia Polytechnic and check out the music department. The students attended a range of classes including DJ scratching class, Improvisation, Band class and beat making. It was a great day. We stayed in Levin with Ms Hoskins' family and also got to check out downtown Wellington and the Levin adventure park as part of our visit. We also caught up with Whare Mitai and Carlos Rangi-Dick who are in their first year of study for the music degree after graduating from tarawera high school last year. You can watch the video of our journey here:

SmokeFree Rockquest

On Sunday the 29th of May 13 senior students headed to Otumoetai College in Tauranga to perform in the Smokefree Rockquest heats. We had three groups; Contradiction, Cass N Dem and Fundamental.We had an awesome day and the students did THS proud. They performed well and had lots of energy n stage. The competition was tough and although we didn't get through to the finals we had a great day. Here is a video of one of our groups and some photos....

Music Mentoring

Some lucky Tarawera students had the chance to work on their song writing skills with Hani Totorewa who has written songs and performed with the band Katchafire for the last 16 years. The day was very successful, our seniors wrote an entire song (about Kawerau) in one lesson! Our year 11s also worked on some reggae songs and had the chance to show their songs to Hani and get feedback. Thank you to the NZ Music Commission for setting this up!

SEUSSICAL THE MUSICAL

Students from year 7 right through to year 13 are gearing up for their performances of 'Seussical the musical' next week. They will be performing two matinees on Wednesday and Thursday next week to local retirees and primary schools with evening performances Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The musical is based on Dr. Seuss stories. Here is a picture of some of the cast trying out their costumes
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Tarawera's new recording gear!

As our music students start writing their first songs of the year we have an awesome new set up that is going to help the process along and create a much higher quality of recordings.
Our music room has been kitted out with some new gear that has been set up so students have the facilities to record their own instruments and vocals for their original songs and there is already some awesome tracks being recorded! There are over 50 students writing songs for NCEA credits this year. We are also hoping to take some of these students and their original songs to Rockquest next term- watch this space! Here are some pictures of the new recording facilities.

Young Performers Concert

On Friday the 4th a group of performers from THS performed at the Whakatane Music Society's Young Performers Concert. There was a wide range of performances from across the Bay of Plenty. Ulani Hoskin sung 'If I Ain't Got You' by Alicia Keys, and Bless Maxwell, Keesha King, Carlos Rangi-Dick and Shartina Broughton performed George Ezra's 'Blame It On Me'.