Forest Lake State High School musicians represented their school beautifully at the recent Fanfare event on June 2, 2022 held at Centenary SHS.
All four of the school’s Program of Excellence music ensembles, including String Orchestra, Concert Band, Jazz Band and DrumLine participated in this year’s event and achieved silvers all around.
Instrumental Music Program of Excellence coordinator and experienced senior music teacher Tara Fuhrmann said all students performed really well on the day of the event, which was a great reflection of their hard work over the past few months.
“Unsurprisingly, instrumental music practices have been heavily impacted by COVID-19 restrictions over the past few years,” she said.
“We were limited by rehearsal time being cancelled for many months during 2020 – 2021, then we were granted permission to rehearse with spatial limits in place, which have gradually reduced since then.”
Mrs Fuhrmann said 2022 did not come without hurdles of its own, including the delayed start to the school year, school closures for floods and student absences due to the ongoing impact of COVID-19.
“That being said, we are proud to report that each of our ensembles achieved a Silver Award, which is very positive following such a trying couple of years,” she said.
Fanfare is a biennial festival for state school bands and orchestras that showcases music-making and promotes high standards of performance and participation.
Due to Covid, the festival did not run in 2020, so it had been 4 years since FLSHS students had last participated in the event.
In term 2 students attended a music camp and attended workshops during their stay.
“Concert Band worked with Dr Rob McWilliams from Yamaha Music Australia, and Jazz Band had a session with Dan Quigley from the Jazz Music Institute,” Mrs Fuhrmann said.
“These sessions really encouraged our musicians to unite and play together as an ensemble – which sounds obvious, but it can be hard to listen to the other parts of the band when you are focussed on the sheet music right in front of you.
“Tips like these greatly enhanced the overall performance quality of all four of our ensembles, as they all worked hard to create a balanced and unified sound.”
Forest Lake SHS is currently taking enrolments for 2023. Students interested in joining the Instrumental Music program – or any other Program of Excellence – should contact the school office for details of the application process.
