Music

Departmental Staff

S J Rushby, BMus (Surrey) Director of Music         
N Lobb, BA (Bretton Hall) Assistant Director of Music
J Fielder, BEd (Sussex)†
R Hare, BMus (Royal Academy of Music)
D S Thomas, MA (Oxford) Headmaster
Mrs M Green Music Administrator

Music at RGS

RGS is well known for its strong musical tradition. Music is a core subject in the First and Second Forms (Years 7-8), and two-thirds of pupils in Year 9 opt for music.  Music is then available at GCSE and A-level, along with Music Technology at A-level.  Numbers are very healthy and results are consistently excellent.

The quality of extra-curricular music is extremely high.  There are five choirs, a Symphony Orchestra, a Swing Band, a Concert Band, two training orchestras and a wide range of other ensembles comprising most instrumental groups.  Concerts are held regularly both in school and outside, including annual concerts at the Dorking Halls and Harlequin Theatre with large-scale choral and orchestral works. Our most senior choir frequently sings evensong at local cathedrals and there are tours abroad every year, most recently to Vienna, Geneva and Rome, where the students sang Mass at St Peter’s Basilica.  The department enjoys close links with the Drama department and the biennial musical is a highlight in the school calendar: recent productions have included Les Miserables, West Side Story and Anything Goes.

Currently, about 350-400 pupils receive instrumental tuition on a variety of instruments, and visiting music teachers organise and direct many of the smaller ensembles and chamber groups.  Several music scholarships are offered each year. RGS pupils are regularly found in the National Youth Orchestra, Pro Corda and the National Children’s Orchestra, and many attend conservatoire Junior Departments on Saturdays.

The school has excellent relationships with the Reigate community. There is a Community Choir, and Parents’ and Friends’ Music Society which give concert and operetta performances, and our preparatory school, Reigate St. Mary’s, is one of only two remaining choir schools in the country not attached to a cathedral. Choristers from St Mary’s often transfer to the Grammar School.  

For a summary of the courses please click below:

Music
Music Technology

Examination Boards

GCSE: Edexcel
A-level: Edexcel

Examination Results: Music

Examination Results: Music Technology

Departmental activities 2010-11

In 2010-11 the Music Department continued to provide a busy and varied programme of extra-curricular activities and trips.

Students studying GCSE and A Level Music went to London for seminars on – respectively – how to get top grades at GCSE, and a London Symphony Orchestra seminar on the works of Webern and Brahms. Additionally there were visits to operas and concerts as usual. RGS Singers, our biggest choir, were treated to a choral workshop led by Peter Farrant, and supported by Legal and General and Oxford University Press.

On the concert front, RGS Unplugged and the Informal Concert Series, along with our Ensembles Concerts, provided performing opportunities for nearly 150 students. Our larger groups performed at the Harlequin Theatre, Dorking Halls and in St Martin’s and St. Matthew’s Churches (in Dorking and Redhill). Polyphony – our chamber choir – gave a concert at St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden, and also sang Choral Evensong at Chichester Cathedral.

The Chamber Orchestra formed the musical band for the Drama Department’s production of Nicholas Nickleby, and also attended a four-day residential course at Bryanston School – the fourth time that we have run such a course.

Three chamber groups travelled to Tunbridge Wells to take part in the Pro Corda Festival, and one quartet, consisting of Lydia Bass, Wakana Yasuda, David Whitlock and Matthew Shelley, made it to the regional finals at Sevenoaks School. Chamber Music and small ensemble music continued to thrive, with our classical and jazz groups appearing at a number of private and public events throughout the year. The Swing Band also had an excellent year, giving a lunchtime concert at Dorking Halls, and providing the music for our Quiz Night and the popular Summer Swing Band Evening (formerly the Summer Serenade) as well as at our major concerts.

Also in the Summer Festival, there was a wonderful ‘lunchtime jazz’ concert, a concert given by Music Scholars, the Junior Concert which featured First to Fourth Form musicians, and a wonderful collaboration with the Drama Department where the entire First Form presented Carnival of the Animals and the orchestra also performed Peter and the Wolf, narrated by Miss Branston. There was also a packed Recital Room to witness the debut performance of female vocal group ‘The Acabelles’, the brainchild of Lower Sixth student Amy Cobain.

As ever, large numbers of students took Associated Board and Trinity Guildhall music exams with excellent results, including Grade 8 distinctions for seven students. There was also RGS student success at the Reigate and Redhill Music Festival, and five students attended weekly Junior Conservatoire sessions in London. First Year student Emily Hart has spent much of the year in the professional touring production of ‘The Sound of Music’, Damon Hayhurst was a national finalist in the UK Young DJ contest of 2010, and Lydia Bass gained a place in the National Youth Guitar Ensemble.

RGS Singers and Polyphony travelled to Rome at the end of the Summer Term to give a variety of concerts including the highlight of singing Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica.