A packed audience of parents, pupils, staff and visitors in Norwich School’s beautiful medieval Chapel heard a scintillating Making Musicians concert on 15 th May 2025.  Making Musicians is a developmental arts enrichment programme for exception musical talent within the school and the county, based at Norwich School and run by the school. Two young musicians each performed a twenty minute set of pieces, and both were of the very highest quality. 15-year-old Kit Shawyer of Sheringham High School treated the audience to an amazingly mature set of violin pieces from Bartok, Beethoven and modern Finnish composer Rautavaara. Having completed his Grade 8 violin with distinction last year, he is studying now for his diploma. Assured playing and technical brilliance was therefore very much on show from the varied programme he performed, delivering it with vivacity and panache. Upper Sixth Norwich School pupil Ben Griffiths is a former Head Chorister. His vocal range and expressiveness are already legendary within Norwich School musical circles, having won the Bernard Burrell music competition last year and having had leading roles in many school musical productions. He executed a vocal masterclass embracing varied musical styles: the lyrical Butterworth songs from ‘A Shropshire Lad’; Bernstein’s famous ‘Maria’; and ‘Words Fail’ from the popular musical ‘Dear Evan Hansen’. The audience were clearly moved by his expressive renditions and the rousing applause that concluded the concert for both performers was thoroughly well deserved The next free music recital in this series takes place in the South Transept of Norwich Cahtedrla on Thursday 12 th June at 13:00 where we will hear from Lower Sixth pupil Melissa Hawkings on her French horn and from Lower Sixth pianist Emmanuel Milne. A mouth-watering concert featuring such prodigious talent is not to be missed!

On Thursday 1 May, Simon Foerster came into school to give us harpists an improvisation masterclass. We learned how to improvise in groups together and how to use various techniques, including using a bow on the harp strings! Using a bow made the harp sound very full and made the notes ring out for longer. Simon taught us how to be more creative about the ways we play our harps and different things we can use. As there aren’t many harpist, Mrs Speca was keen to engage so even bought a small lap harp along so that she could join in too! It was great fun to improvise and make music together - a lovely way to start the month. - Timothy Madders, L4