Inspiring Musical Achievements and Experiences for Year 10–12 Students

We have 33 students in our Year 11 and Year 12 academic music classes who have chosen Music as their HSC subject. Earlier this term, Mrs. Sherer and Mr. James accompanied 40 students from Year 10–12 Elective Music to see Encore at the Sydney Opera House. Encore is a program showcasing outstanding performances and compositions by students from schools across NSW, presented for the 2024 Higher School Certificate Music examinations. Our students were inspired and in awe of the incredible performances.

Year 11 Music 1 students have spent Term 1 studying a variety of sub-genres of jazz. Last week, they presented musicological research, an aural analysis, and a solo performance based on their studies from this term.

This term, Year 12 Music 1 students have enjoyed listening to and analyzing a wide range of music from the 20th and 21st centuries. They have explored various approaches to composing, including aleatoric music (chance music), interpreting graphically notated scores, composing 12-tone rows using inversions, retrogrades, and retrograde inversions (following the rules of serialism), and integrating technology into the composition process. Their most recent assessment involved creating their own composition and performing a piece from their HSC repertoire. Students are now preparing for next term’s performance assessment, which requires them to perform two additional pieces from their HSC program.

Alongside their performance and composition preparation, Daniel and Toby from the Year 12 Music 1 and Music Extension classes have been studying the mandatory topic Music of the Last 25 Years (with an Australian focus). Earlier this week, they attended the Australian Composers’ Day held at Santa Sabina College. Renowned Australian composers Jessica Wells, Heather Shannon, and Paul Stanhope shared their expertise in seminars discussing their own compositions, provided valuable insights into the composition process, and workshopped student pieces, offering advice about orchestration and score conventions.

Reflection from Toby Taylor – Year 12 Music 2 and Music Extension Student:
“The Australian Composers’ Day excursion provided an inspiring experience, further opening my eyes to our regional composing scene rather than a global perspective. One of the main compositional techniques I took notice of was motivic development—taking a small musical idea and evolving it throughout the piece to create unity and variation. Another technique that stood out to me was retrograde—playing a melodic idea in reverse order. A key tip I took from the excursion was to pay attention to key signature choice for strings, as those with many flats are harder to read and play. I will incorporate this concept into future compositions to ensure they are practical in terms of playability.”