Forest Arts Music Hub

I wanted to take a minute to thank the team at The Music Service for the outstanding work from the peripatetic team at Brownhills.

I have spent this morning with 30 instrumentalists at Brownhills playing in a band with Rob James at the back dropping in and spontaneously supporting a group of guitarists brilliantly and I am now listening to him providing excellent tuition next door. Last night, Craig Stevens led a rehearsal using a piece of music he had composed, bespoke for our students with Brownhills students and local primary and sixth form students. His brass players are making brilliant progress and there is a real sense of joy and love of music coming from his teaching room. Allie Hollins is about to put 2 students through Grade 6 Musical Theatre exams as well as a host of Grade 5 and Grade 3 students, whilst preparing other GCSE students for their performance aspect of their exam and rehearsing choral repertoire for upcoming concerts with small groups. She is just marvellous. Ruth's students are making outstanding progress and more and more are progressing towards ABRSM exams this year. She is delightful to work with and the students are loving their lessons with her. Last, but by no means least, Carl's drummers are also preparing for exams but also developing fabulously as musicians. His ability to get students thinking musically and able to work with ensembles is superb.

I have been reflecting on how pleased I am with music at our academy and where it is heading. We're still very much on a journey, but the progress is really exciting and the work of the peripatetic team is having an enormous impact. To have 5 musicians of that quality working with our students is not something we take for granted, not to mention that they are also superb teachers who foster a love of the subject and delightful humans who we do an awful lot of laughing and smiling with!

Please feel free to pass this on to the team. They are a dream and we love working with them. Thank you for your ongoing support and everything you do.