The eleventh ‘Dulwich Festival of Music’ was held at Dulwich College Singapore from the 16th November to the 18th November 2017. The festival is an opportunity for all middle and high school students of Dulwich colleges to gather together for three days of intense rehearsals. During the three days selected students performed in the ‘Dulwich Musician of the Year’ competition and all of the students performed in the final concert. This year’s theme was ‘Back to the Future’ and was based on the 1985 film of the same title. Students were introduced to this classic film and worked on pieces of music composed in 1955, 1985 and 2015 as these were the dates that were visited during the movie. The concert involved a choir, orchestra, string orchestra, big band and a number of rock bands showing a wide range of musicianship skills and techniques from the young people.
The students of Dehong were given a special welcome on our first day for joining the festival so soon after the school has opened and this was reflective of the warm welcome we received throughout the week. The students were thrown into a world of intense rehearsals with a musical language. The music was not easy but they took it apart bit by bit and rehearsed until they were able to follow and join in with the whole piece. During this process they worked with students from a number of different colleges and new friendships were formed with promises at the end to keep in touch. The students embraced every opportunity that was given to them and improved their musicianship skills by immersing themselves in the process. They have picked up lessons about being a musician that they will be able to naturally apply to many communication and disciplined situations later on in their lives. They were a credit to the school and made their parents and teachers very proud of their achievements.
