WESTERN ORCHESTRA
Gustavo Dudamel
The sight of all the new faces who joined us following the audition, and how our orchestra members progressed in their musical abilities and teamwork skills put into practice throughout the year was truly amazing.
Through Orchestra rehearsals we were able to explore many music genres including Baroque music, Classical music, Pop music and Film music. Antonio Vivaldi’s Spring (from The Four Seasons), The Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss II, Believer by Imagine Dragons The Greatest Show, A Million Dreams, Rewrite the Stars and Never Enough from the Greatest Showman are some of the scores which we were able to practice and perfect.
We started off the year by performing at The Chapel of the Hope of the World’s 90th anniversary celebratory program, “An evening of Hymns”.
The entire orchestra did a splendid job and performed an item and played the School Hymn. Selected orchestra members accompanied the OGA choir as well. We played and accompanied for hymns such as The Church’s one foundation, The Lord’s my shepherd, Crown Him with many crowns, Thine be the Glory, Seek ye First, Hymn for Ceylon and Be still, for the presence of the Lord.
It was a great pleasure to perform at “Transcend La Fete De La Musique”, a Music and French day organized by the school Music Circle and French Circle. We performed Jacques Offenbach’s Can Can and Under the Bridge of Paris.
We hope to end the year by performing a Christmas Medley at Carol Service in December.
This year, the following orchestra members won musical awards.
We would like to congratulate Enakshi Tilakaratna who won special awards for singing and piano and Saneli Peter who won special awards for piano, violin and the string category at the finals for the 26th Sri Lanka Annual Competitive Festival.
We would also like to congratulate Nykaela Kurukulasooriya for winning an award for cello at the Trinity College Prize giving this year.
This report would be incomplete if I fail to thank all those who made tremendous contributions to bring the orchestra to the present standards.
I would like to take this opportunity to extend my heartfelt gratitude to our amazing conductor, Ms. Sureka Amerasinghe for her encouragement and immense support extended throughout. Her efforts and guidance are deeply appreciated. What we learnt from her is not limited to music. The morals she taught us will definitely enlighten our lives and punctuality and self-discipline were practised at all times.
I would also like to thank our enthusiastic and ever-supportive teacher in charge, Ms. Uthpala Botheju, without whom this year would not have run as smoothly as it has.
Finally, I would like to thank my deputy, Tanushri Kaluarachchi and the rest of the orchestra for making my last year a memorable one.
Imeshi Karunaratne
Learder
Sinhala Orchestra
Plato
The Sinhala Orchestra has grown to be a group of talented young girls who share one great passion- Music.
Our orchestra consist of a wide variety of instruments ranging from African percussion instruments to Traditional Sri Lankan drums, string instruments, Glockenspiel, Flute and Keyboard.
The year began with the annual inter-house Sinhala Solo Singing competition where we performed the tunes of Clarence Wijewardene to accompany our finalists.
Our second performance for the year was at the Inter House Sinhala Choral Singing competition where we accompanied our four house choirs.
We also performed at the music day “Dynamic” organized by the Music Circle and “Sinhala Day” organized by the Sinhala Sahithya Sangamaya.
We were also invited to perform at the annual YMCA carol service
2023
There are 21 students in the Sinhala Orchestra.
Participate Events
- 30th March 2023 - Sinhala Solo Singing Competition
- 27th March 2023 - Workshop For Orchestra
- 03rd May 2023 - Sinhala Solo Singing Assembly
- 14th June 2023 - Inter-House Choral Singing Competition
- 31st July 2023 - Band Show “Ridma Gathika ’23”
Tamil Orchestra
The main highlight of the year was our performance at Tamil Day, “Thean Thamizhuku Aaram 2019” where we performed two devotional songs ‘Eeka thanthaya’ and ‘Prema mogateye’.
We also performed in the Navarathri Vizha organized by the Hindu Society. Our members also took part in the solo instrument competition organized by the Karnatic Society of Royal College.
2023
The Tamil choir and orchestra brought out the musical brilliance this term.
During this term, our choir and orchestra created enhancing performances, fostering a sense of unity and artistic expression and they performed in the Navarathri Celebrations as well on the 17th of October.
The third term was a period of musical growth for both choir and orchestra.