On Friday 4th May a group of 42 students and 4 staff from across both campuses of Waverley Christian College headed to the ‘Generations in Jazz’ Festival, held in Mt Gambier South Australia. After a long bus ride with a few stops along the way, students and staff disembarked at the beautiful ‘Aberfoyle Gardens and Farm’ where we would be staying for the next 3 day.
After very generous hospitality in the form of food and a warm fire from our hosts Barbara and Max Lightbody, the groups made their way to the first of three night concerts featuring International Jazz artists and home grown talent. After a very inspiring concert it was back to the accommodation for more food and fire before an early night in bed ready for the big day ahead.
WCC had five ensembles competing on the Saturday in the school’s National Championship and all performed extremely well.
It was a really long day already but back home for a quick change of clothes and then out the door again for the second of the night concerts. This featured a 2 hour performance by homegrown talent ‘The Cat Empire’ who made us all dance the night away.
Alongside this excellent night of performance was the announcement of the 2018 Schools Superbands. These groups are chosen from the best individual students in each division. Joshua Yuen of Year 10 was announced as part of this band on Percussion/Vibraphone. A huge effort that means that out of the 60 school bands in our division Josh were chosen as the best percussionist. A really stunning effort.
Bolstered by this fantastic news the Bands and Choirs headed home very upbeat about the possibilities of results tomorrow.
The day began, as they often do in Mt Gambier, cold and early, as we packed the bus and said our thankyous to our gracious host before heading back to the event site ready to break up into groups for a great morning of tutorials with some of the best instrumentalists and vocalists in the world where we learnt a lot about how to master our own personal input to the ensembles and further our individual playing.
I am extremely pleased to announce that, to the massive cheers of the Waverley Christian College contingent, we received the following results:
Wantirna South Jazz Band – National Champions of Bands Division 4+
Wantirna South Small Jazz Ensemble – National Ranking of 3rd in Small Jazz Ensembles Open Section.
Narre Warren South Jazz Choir – National ranking of 23rd place in Vocal Division 3.
Wantirna South Jazz Choir – National ranking of 52nd place for Vocal Division 3
Narre Warren South Jazz Band – National Ranking of 13th place in Bands Division 4+.
All of these results are fantastic and we are so proud of the work that these students and staff have put in over the last 5 months to achieve this level of outcome.
Thank you all for your support of our Music and Jazz programs and we look forward to sharing even more success with you from Generations in Jazz 2019.
Mr. David George
Secondary Music Coordinator.
David George 