This week a group of seven chosen young musicians from SVS took a trip to Benenden School’s brand new auditorium to watch the Kidenza Orchestra perform. Harry Heyworth and Dominic Powell (both Second Form) speak about this experience below.

“At 8.30am, a small group of seven students were driven by Mr Horley and Mrs Porter to Benenden School in the beautiful English countryside. Upon our arrival, we were escorted to the school’s brand-new auditorium which had recently been re-done. We had been invited to this incredible space, with grand exposed wooden beams, and tightly-furnished wooden walls, to watch the Kidenza Orchestra for Kids perform a series of compositions.

First, we were shown to our seating area, luckily for us it was in the front row. Once we had all sat down and made ourselves comfortable, the orchestral group started to introduce themselves.

The group consisted of the musical sections: stings, woodwind, brass, keyboards and percussion. In the strings there were two violins, one viola, one cello and a double bass. In the woodwind the was a flute, an oboe, a clarinet and a bassoon. In the brass there was a trumpet, a french horn and a trombone. The keyboards had one grand piano. Finally, there was also one percussionist who had an entire range of instruments including timpani, crash symbols, snare drums, bass drums, kick drums, hi-hats and a large marimba.

The first piece was Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Even though this has turned into a modern day nursery rhyme, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote the main tune. The orchestral sections showed us different arrangements of the main tune we know today, each section had their own arrangement, though not all had the main tune showcased in it.

We have both agreed that Pirates of the Caribbean, written by Hans Zimmer, was the liveliest and most well-known piece. The audience clapped their hands to the piece whilst the musicians played with all their might.

They showed us how this piece included elements from Holsts’ The Planets and Hall of the Mountain King by Greig. The Pirates of the Caribbean theme that they played had snippets and ideas from these many pieces in it. It showed us how even today, we still take inspiration from the men and women from the past and put their ideas in modern music.

We also heard a piece from Westside Story and a piece by Florence Price, the first African American women to write music that was played by symphony orchestras.

Our small group of chosen young musicians from SVS enjoyed it a lot and, for the younger students, it was a great opportunity to learn about orchestras. We would definitely recommend this for future musicians at SVS”.