David Nieper Academy Voices attends the Derbyshire Big Sing
Friday 17th March
19 DNA Voices students ranging from Year 7-11 attended the very first Derbyshire Big Sings Event at County Hall in Matlock. The event was organised by Derbyshire Music Partnership and was the first of it’s kind to see secondary schools across Derbyshire join together to perform a joint concert.
DNA Voices were joined by the “Tuptones Acapella Group” of Tupton Hall School, Brookfield Community School choir and both Junior & Senior choirs of Highfields School, who after an individual rehearsal session within school, came together that afternoon for final rehearsals before performing to an audience of 200 in the beautifully ornate Members room from 6:30-8pm that evening.
The event consisted of individual items performed by each school, soloists from each school, who were selected through a video audition process and finally four joint numbers – in 4-part harmony, performed as a 100+ choir that opened and closed the evening. The “Big Sings” choir performed Blinded by Your Grace by Stormzy and Africa by Toto, as beginning pieces, finishing with Sing by Gary Barlow and Viva La Vida by Coldplay, which were true crowd pleasers. What made Sing, even more special is our students, Rachel Nash & Ellie Farndon were invited to stand at the front, and perform this song in British Sign Language to accompany the singing, providing a fully inclusive experience.
Our Students sang a wonderful rendition of “Hall of Fame” by The Script as our individual item, including rich chorus harmonies and overlapping melodies in the final chorus, all of which were accompanied by acoustic guitar by Rachel Nash (Year 11) and Isabelle Kirk (Year 10), which made the performance even more special. This was immediately followed by Rachel’s solo performance, after being selected by Event organisers from her audition video, who sang (and played) “Only the Good die young” by Queen, which she has recently learnt and performed as part of her RSL Level 2 Music Practioners performance exam.
Pupils thoroughly enjoyed attending the event, and took a lot from the experience.
Adetorike Adegoke (Year 8) commented that “It was such a feel good experience to come together as a wider community through singing. It was amazing to see what we could achieve together.”
Adesope Adegoke (Year 11) also commented “We’re a big group of singers, but not quite big enough to be able to tackle 4-part harmonies together. It felt such an advanced experience to be able to do that with other schools and it sounded amazing”.
Finally, Isabelle Kirk commented “It was inspiring to see the different styles of music that others schools learn and perform. It’s given us some new ideas on things we would like to do.”
All pupils performed fantastically and showcased the flourishing musical talents of all students in attendance. All proceeds raised on the evening, will be put back into the next Big Sings event, with the hopes of securing larger venues, more ticket availability and future fantastic opportunities for our students. Well done to all involved.
Mrs Harrison
