BBC National Orchestra of Wales’ principal flautist delivers masterclass

17 Aug 2016

The Music Department recently held a wind extravaganza masterclass featuring classes on brass, oboe, flute and jazz band taken by our visiting music teachers as well as BBC National Orchestra of Wales’ principal flautist Matthew Featherstone.

‘Blow Brass!’ was the first class taken by Jo Sykes with assistance from her son Carlton who performed a tuba solo to prove that tubas can play very fast, to the pupils’ delight. She offered the chance for 13 non-brass players to have a go playing in a brass band set-up and, after a bit of tuition, they managed James Brown’s I Feel Good which had the pupils at the back of the hall jumping up to see.

Next was ‘Reed Corner’, taken by Jane Finch. She introduced the audience to the oboe, oboe d’amore and cor anglais, and then performed Dvorak’s New World Symphony theme, more famously known as the Hovis advert music. Jane presented her Oboe Group (Jo Maddock, Amy Seal and Alexandra Baughan) to us, who had written a story, accompanied by sounds on their reeds, to show how expressive they could be. They managed many emotions such as excited, happy, sad and even emulated speech. At the end of the session about 20 pupils were given a reed and played along to the Blue Danube.

Matthew Featherstone took the next class which included flute beat-boxing and an open masterclass for flute pupils. Congratulations to Chumba Koech, Grace Olding, Maddie Calvesbert-Sharp, Esme Hughes, Caitlin McLoughlin and Andrew Penney who were all brave enough to play. Matthew performed Debussy’sSyrinx and Zoom Tube, a contemporary composition, both for solo flute. He was an inspiration for all of our musicians.