HCA CHOIR CAMP 2012 REPORT - SPECTACULAR SUCCESS!!!!

by Mrs Hawthorn

 On Sunday 19^th February 49 excited children arrived at Kearsney College for our second annual Choir Camp, and what a spectacular success it was!  Huge thanks to Ms Jeanine Du Casse and Mr Senzo Myezi for their roles in it.

Highlights for the children included the excitement of staying in the dorms there, the outstanding meals and swimming in Kearsney’s pool.

We enjoyed a musical workout with Mr Bernard Kruger, conductor of the world renowned Kearsney College Choir.  This is the kind of experience that money just can’t buy!

We played our own version of “Noot vir Noot” and my elder daughter Sarah came and took a dance/choreography session.  When I asked the children if we looked alike the answer was “No, she’s prettier than you”!  Ah, out the mouths of babes!

Keeping it in the family, my younger daughter Amy assisted me with the sectional rehearsals.  Clearly I should have had more children!

In total, we sang for 10 hours, in full voice, giving 100% energy and focus and I was blown away at the children’s resilience and lack of complaints.  The hard work paid off at the concert for the parents on Monday afternoon.  I was so incredibly proud of the children’s performance of the 6 songs we learnt and I think they were too.  It’s hard to explain what an achievement this is in such a short space of time.  We are tackling increasingly difficult music and the children continue to meet the challenge head on.

The Choir Camp is proving to be an essential part of the life of the Choir, providing not only training and bonding time, but a fun, motivating reason to sing in the choir at HCA.  I am thrilled to have the opportunity to go away with the children at the beginning of each year and am grateful for the support of the parents and the school in achieving the goal of developing greatness in every singing child!

Picnic Proms - first quarter 2012!

A brilliant turnout was witnessed at our first Picnic Proms of 2012 held on Saturday 11 Feb.  Even though the year has just begun, it was evident that the Creative Arts Department had lost no time in 'Developing Greatness'! 

The programme kicked off with the reserve marimba band giving a vibrant rendition of 'Sway' and led on to a few young promising vocal soloists, pianists and even a worship band, interspersed with wonderfully entertaining renditions by the Junior and Senior Choirs who seem to have learned much repertoire in a short time.  Way to go, Mrs Hawthorn and Mrs du Casse!

A super musical comedy,  'Cinderella', workshopped and written during the December / January break and produced and directed by Mrs Pereira (assisted by Mrs Schnell and guitar teacher Roxy Oschman) was presented by children who had attended the hugely successful theatre camp run by Mrs Pereira.  What extraordinary talent was witnessed!    The afternoon rounded off with the HCA Marimba Band 2012 performing an energetic arrangement of 'La Bamba' and a current hit, 'Beautiful People'.

A tuckshop was provided by the Marimba Band 2012 who were raising funds for their tour to the International Marimba Festival in August - this was a huge success, and most people left filled to the brim with delicious ice cream from Huberto's after being persuaded to buy these in aid of fundraising....What a sacrifice!! 233 ice creams were sold!!!

A huge thank you to Picnic Proms co-ordinator, Mrs Pereira for her hard work and preparation in providing this opportunity for our young musicians and actors to shine!  Thank you to Mrs Schell for organising the drama team as continuity announcers.  Well done!

Thank you, too, to Mrs Roberts for her help in making everything run smoothly and holding the Creative Arts Department flag high!

The lead actress in the musical produced and
directed by Mrs Schnell & Mrs Pereira

Question:  Has there ever been any other school that has been blessed with children of such diverse creative ability?  There is so much talent here just waiting to be harnessed!  And so many supportive parents....Thank you, Lord, for this recipe for success! 

Of Britto, Rizzi & Pirates!!!

From the Art Room....by Carey:

I decided to begin our school year with studying self portraits in different styles gaining inspiration from different contemporary artists.

The Grade 3's are basing their class work on the theme of Pirates.  In the art room they produced exciting mixed media Pirate Portraits.  Here we discussed the correct positioning and proportion of the features - there was much excitement as the children added gold teeth, earrings, scars, nose rings, braids and even bandanas to their pirates with a designer flair!  The most exciting thing was naming these salty rogues!

The work of well known American 'Pop Artist' James Rizzi, whose paintings are cartoon-like, with bold vibrant, exciting images and colours was studied by the Grade 4 classes.  Self portraits in Rizzi style were produced, showing the big, bright eyes which is a Rizzi trademark.  How the children loved doing this!

Rizzi designed and constructed many buildings, and much of his work shows city scenes with colourful buildings.  We decided to use paint chips and stickers to create a city scene of buildings on the background of our portraits.  Excellent results were obtained to the delight of all!

Grade 5's took Rizzi's work a little further by painting colourful buildings forming the background of their self portraits.  What fun this work was!

 Romero Britto is a neo-pop painter and sculptor.  He combines stereotypical elements of cubism, pop art and graffiti in his work.  The Gr 6 children found his work wonderfully absorbing, and carefully executed beautifully completed self portraits in pastels.

Our Gr 7 classes continued the portrait theme by producing ethnic African Masks. Having seen metalwork projects done by schools in America and Europe, I wanted to try this too.  I encountered many problems in trying to source aluminium for this project.  No one could supply me with the Aluminium sheets which seemed so freely available elsewhere.  It was time to think ' out of the box', and lo and behold, inspiration struck like a lightning bolt (not too much of that happens usually!!!).  I contacted a catering company and asked for lasagne dish lids. The journey in experimentation began - blunt pencils, knitting needles, nintendo styluses, hair clips .....all were used for the embossing.  Permanent markers were added for colour.  The hair extensions were purchased from one of my favourite stores - PEP!  The children loved this project and produced AMAZING results!  Well done, Grade 7's!

What a CREATALICIOUS start to the year!!

HCA Marimba Band 2012 plays at Woolworth's opening!

A freezing cold day, grey and pouring with rain did not stop our vibrant new band for 2012 from brightening up the day by playing marimbas with the energy and gusto that is their trademark - to the delight of eager shoppers and onlookers! This was their public debut!

Team talk and prayer

2012 band in action

Performance over and now, back to school!

A new Woolworth's Food Store has opened in Hillcrest and the band played to celebrate at the opening ceremony and our headmaster, Mr Temlett was asked to pray after the speeches were over.

Once again we were helped so willingly by parents in order to transport and load children and instruments to the venue.  Thank you, parents, we could never do this without your amazing support!  HCA Rocks!!

Marimba Play it Forward Camp 2011

Cooling off in the pool...

Check our muscles!

Thumbs up!!

What a slippery, cold, wet hug!!!

Learning....

Playing....

Playing it forward

Pensive moment

Playing it forward...

We were once again hugely blessed at our annual 'Play it Forward' Camp held at Golden Harvest Retreat.  This is a working camp where the outgoing Gr 7 members 'play it forward' to the new members of the band, by teaching them part of their existing repertoire.

Playing it forward....

Girls just wanna have fun!

Sunbathing

Trying to get the cookie...

Bevy of beauties!

The fish was this big...!

All smile!



A united team!!!!!

Not only is it a time of learning music repertoire, but it is a time of bonding for the new band.  Much emphasis is put on what it means to be part of a team, how to listen to each other, and look out for one another.  The older members pass on their knowledge to the younger members too, by leading devotions and discussions.  By the time we left camp, the barriers of grades 4 to 7 had been broken, and the team was a family!

We held two impromptu concerts which were delightfully and wonderfully received.  The first concert was for a visiting church group, and the second concert was for the community of Rosetta - some people even travelled from Pietermaritzburg when they heard the band was going to play.  The children gained much encouragement from the enthusiastic audience response.

Sunday impromptu performance

Prayer time before the performance

Mr and Mrs Gericke (and young Chloe Gericke) were in charge of the evening games session - and we had some hilarious times, but all in good fun!

Yeehah!

Guess who!!!

Only.........365 more sleeps till Camp 2012!!!!!!!!