Choirs
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Musical Mayhem
Musical Mayhem is a lively sing-along music class for babies and toddlers from 3 months to four years, with puppets, percussion games, and parachute play. There is a session at the Cherwell School on Saturday mornings from 10.15 to 11.05. Drinks and biscuits included.
For more information, click here for the Musical Mayhem main website.
Prep Choirs
Taught by Lucia Boué and accompanied by Helen Birch, our Prep Choirs encourage a love of music and singing and develop early musicianship through fun warm ups, singing games and song. Children in Prep Choir experience:
- Fun warm-ups and games
- Learning songs by rote
- Developing an understanding the elements of music, e.g. melody, rhythm, and structure
- Using basic musical terminology, e.g. verse and chorus; in Prep 2 this advances to more technical vocabulary such as staccato and legato
- Discovering basic aural skills; Prep 1 discussing higher and lower, louder and softer; Prep 2 starting to recognise major and minor tonalities and chords
- Singing accompanied and unaccompanied songs
- Building the foundations of good vocal technique, focusing on posture, breathing, and diction
- Ensemble skills: beginning to learn how to follow a conductor, sing as a group, and count
- Singing music from a range of genres, e.g. pop, folk, classical, musical theatre
- Learning songs in different languages (recently Sisi Sisi Dolada in Congolese with Prep 1 and Cielito Lindo in Spanish with Prep 2)
- Singing in rounds; in Prep 2 beginning to sing in 2-part harmony
- Using actions and signs alongside the music
- Performing in termly concerts and participating in massed choir performances with the older choirs.
Junior Choir
Directed by Margaret Lingas and accompanied by George Charman, members of the Junior Choirs experience:
- Fun warm-ups and games combined with explanations of vocal technique and health and music theory
- Singing from sheet music and expanding musical terminology as it appears in repertoire
- Continuing to learn by rote, thus strengthening aural skills
- Improving vocal technique through posture, breathing, and diction, and adding age-appropriate discussion of vocal registers and growing/changing voices
- Developing ensemble skills: recognising conducting beat patterns, starts and endings, dynamics, and tempo changes
- Learning to sing as an unconducted ensemble; gesturing through breath
- Building rhythmic and counting skills: simple subdivision concepts (e.g. triplets, compound vs simple time), introducing songs with complex time signatures like 7/8
- Exploring aural skills, e.g. major, minor, augmented, and diminished triads; major, minor, and whole tone scales; intervals up to a fifth; awareness of numbered scale degrees and building chords using them; solfege; introducing concepts like leading tones and resolving dissonance
- Singing in 2+ part harmony; introducing more independent musical lines, e.g. simple counterpoint
- Singing music from a range of genres, e.g. pop, folk, classical, musical theatre, and learning how technique/ornaments/chosen vowels can change in different genres
- Learning songs in different languages; discussing the meanings of key words and historical and cultural contexts
- Introduction of semi-staged elements, e.g. simple dancing, stagecraft, body percussion, acting exercises;
- Solo opportunities
- Performing termly concerts
- Participating in massed choir performances.
Senior Choirs
Our Senior Choirs comprise the Girls Choir (led by Margaret Lingas) and Boys Choir (led by Colin Ritter Danskin); both choirs are also directed by Benedict Goodall and accompanied by George Charman. Members of the Senior Choirs experience:
- Singing from sheet music in 3–4 parts
- Repertoire for the combined SATB senior choir as well as dividing into Cambiata (young people with changed/changing voices) and Upper Voices (Soprano/Alto) choirs
- Solo opportunities
- Further development of good vocal technique: posture, breathing, diction, and managing different vocal registers
- Advancement of aural skills, e.g. intervals wider than a fifth, seventh chords; rhythm games including triplets, quintuplets, and septuplets
- Expanding musical terminology as it appears in repertoire
- Building ensemble skills: singing in conducted and unconducted ensembles
- Singing in a range of languages, encouraging word-for-word translations and historical and cultural context
- Singing music from a range of genres, e.g. pop, folk, classical, musical theatre, and learning how technique/ornaments/chosen vowels can change in different genres
- Semi-staged performances
- Occasional musical outings, e.g. Oxford International Song Festival
- Opportunities to volunteer with Junior and Prep choirs, e.g. DofE
- Specific assistance managing vocal change in adolescence for all voices; individualised voice checks to support personal development
- Performing termly concerts
- Singing alongside professional singers
- Additional opportunities to participate in non-OYC music events, e.g. Arvo Pärt concert with professional orchestra; joint concerts with local, national, and international ensembles
- Participating in massed choir performances.