End of Year Concert 2022
Wonderful to hear the Hyde Youth Band, Hyde Street Junior Band, Hyde Street Brass Class and Footscay-Yarraville Percussion Academy kids play yesterday. What a great effort these young people have put in this year. It’s been great to hear you all develop and reflect our key values:
Community – we actively contribute and reflect our local community and its diversity and welcome everyone
Mastery – we foster musical mastery to help children achieve the life-affirming satisfaction of continually reaching new levels of mastery, surprising even themselves, building life skills and fostering collaboration and community
Joy – making music in a group is joyful, and harnesses the love of and need for community, mastery and creative outlets. We put the class in brass!
At our end-of-year concert, we also handed out Victorian Bands League Awards for length of service – 2 for 3 years, 3 for 4 years, 10 for 5 years and Hetty, Abe and Levi for 10 years. How fabulous for a youth band! There are clearly some friendships for life with our young folk.
A very special Life Membership of Hyde Street Youth Band was presented to David Greilach by our president for his outstanding contributions to Hyde Street for more than a decade, David, your service and commitment is both outstanding and unforgettable!
Congratulations to all of the 2022 Youth Band Musical Director award winners! Bethany for the Bill Shea Memorial trophy for best overall bandsperson, Connor for the Conductor’s award for skills and qualities (who we are sadly losing to Adelaide to go to medical school – yes, music does make you smarter as Phillipa says), the ever reliable Evelyn for Musicianship and to Aidan, Encouragement for all your efforts!
And Congratulations to our Junior Band members: the Conductors award went to Sophie, the Musicianship award to Imogen who took up brass this year and is playing superbly and making herself indispensable in both bands, and to Juliette, the Encouragement award for your great improvement. There was also a special award for Harrison who is in all three bands on percussion and cornet and has stepped in and up so many times!
At Hyde Street Youth Band we encourage our senior musicians who are mastering their instruments to practice their solo skills with the band. This gives our younger and up-and-coming players the ability to learn through listening and immersing themselves in the joy of music – key musical skills. Here are some excerpts from Hetty on Flugal horn in ‘Children of Sanchez’ by Chuck Mangione, Levi on cornet playing the solo from ‘Rusalka’s Song to the Moon’ by Dvorak and Bethany playing ‘Love Changes Everything’ by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with guest conductor Chris Smith.
It wouldn’t be a Hyde Street end-of-year concert without a massed item of Youth Band, Junior Band and Percussion Academy kids. Here’s a perennial favourite, Wipe Out by the Surfaris. Look for the Junior Band kids throughout the band, particularly the cornets up the back and our rhythmic percussionists. Can’t wait to see our Brass Class kids further developing their skills and joining in next year!