A warm hello to our entire St Edmund’s College Community. The Creative and Performing Arts team has some new faces this year, and we are looking forward to a wonderful year packed full of events, excursions, performances, and opportunities for your boys to flourish in the Creative and Performing Arts.
Our vision is to provide a space for all students to be able to communicate, create, collaborate, connect, and grow in confidence. An Arts education allows for the development of the whole child – their mind, body, and spirit. Research has confirmed that engagement in the arts teaches your child to create, innovate, stretches their attention span, teaches persistence, manage stress, and
develops leadership skills. Engagement in Music education specifically has profound effects on your child’s literacy and numeracy skills and benefits your child’s ability to engage academically.
On 5 April, we are holding ‘Battle of the Bands’, a competition between St Edmund’s College, Marist, Daramalan, Canberra Girls Grammar, and St Clare’s College. Our students have been working hard on their performances, and we can’t wait for the competition to begin.
Our Co-curricular program has had a great start, with many students from both St Clare’s College and St Edmund’s College engaging in our ensembles. Our newest addition to the Co-curricular space is a String Quartet. If your child plays an instrument, we would love to encourage them to pursue any of the wonderful opportunities we have on offer. Next term, a Senior Drumline will be starting, meeting on Tuesdays at lunchtime. If your child is interested, please see Mrs. Rasmussen. Singing Blues is open to all Year 4-6 students and is meeting at 1:05 pm on Mondays. We have some great popular repertoire to start.
Mr. Hekimian’s Year 9, 10, 11, and 12 Drama classes are preparing for ACT UP – a curated series of original short performances at the Canberra Theatre Centre on 31 May. Guest artist Clare Moss has been visiting the students to coach them in their student-devised works. We wish the boys well in their preparations and look forward to seeing them excel in this project.
In Media, the Senior Classes have been engaging with Social Media Influencing and Podcasts with guest speakers from national TV and radio zooming in to give advice to our students. We are looking forward to sharing the boys’ podcast series with you soon.
Senior Music students were joined by ANU School of Music lecturer and convenor John Mackey for an improvisation workshop. John is a world class tenor saxophonists and the students learned about how to practice effectively and increase their theoretical knowledge around improvisation.
In Art, Senior students are investigating artists within a social and political context and are making connections within their own context to create a body of work. Please enjoy the very early sketches of their major work, which will be completed by the end of Term 2.
Rachel Rasmussen
Head of Creative & Performing Arts