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So far St Canices Instrumental Music Programme has created 122 blog entries.

Registration Night for Music Programme 2018-2019

Dear Parents / Guardians

We shall be soon approaching next years Music Registration Night – Thursday 31st May 7:30pm.

As last years registration process worked very well last year, we shall be running it the same this year. Feedback from parents was that signing children up in May for their classes the following September assisted greatly by enabling them to plan their children’s extra curricular actives for the following academic year well in advance. It was also noted that it gave parents the opportunity to meet the music teachers fact to face.

We are conscious however that some parents did find that when they looked at the schedule that some offerings were only on specific days, but not branched out and therefore left them no room for movement within their own personal schedules. We have taken note of some of these and are working with the music teachers to rectify for next year, but if there is anything specific that you think should be looked at this year could you please send in that feedback via email and we shall try our best to address it prior to circulation of the 2018-2019 schedule. Obviously we have to consider all offerings as a group offering rather than individual but we are open to any suggestions of making it easier for all to attend all required classes.

Thanks in advance
Shirley

By St Canices Instrumental Music Programme|2019-04-30T13:38:05+01:00May 1st, 2018|Music|

Friends of Maytime Melodies Your Support is Needed!

Dear Parents/Guardians

We in St Canice’s N.S. are all justifiably very proud of our musicians and our music programme. We are proud of the many achievements of the children over the years and we know how much fun they have in playing music together.

However running a music programme of this size and nature costs a lot of money and requires funding on an ongoing basis! The registration fees and instrument hire fees are not enough to fund the programme.

The bi-annual Maytime Melodies concert is our main fundraiser and we rely heavily upon all monies raised by the concert to buy the many things required for the programme. For example, this year alone we have spent in excess of €2,000 on new music stands, replacing many of the older stands which were in a bad state of repair; we paid for a total overhaul of all instruments over the summer months, repairing and replacing them to ensure they were up to hire standards in September, we purchased new cellos as this area was growing, one cello costs about €450 and in the past couple of years we have had to replace a number of cellos, this year another focus of ours was to invest in new 1/8 size violins for Junior Infant students as many of the older ones were no longer fixable.

Traditionally, people involved in businesses locally have been given the opportunity to support the programme by advertising in the Maytime Melodies Programme.

Following a suggestion by some parents, it was decided to extend this facility to all parents/guardians of children involved in the programme who may wish to be associated with and support the programme by becoming “Friends of Maytime Melodies”.

The names of all “Friends” will be published in our Concert programme. If you would like to become a Maytime Melodies Friend, please submit a cheque for €20 made payable to St Canice’s Instrumental Music Programme by Friday 4th May 2018. Please ensure you put the cheque in a sealed envelope with your name and the name of your child on the outside. Cheques can be left in the music post box in front lobby in the school, situated on the wall beside Kay’s office.

All funds received will go directly towards our wonderful music programme and ensure that our children will continue to enjoy the benefits of the programme for many years to come!

Many thanks,
The Music Committee

By St Canices Instrumental Music Programme|2019-04-30T13:38:06+01:00May 1st, 2018|Concerts, Music|

Information Night for Registration 2018-2019

As you know we have been working on the Music Programme to enhance some of the processes within.

We have listening and noting a lot of the parents & teachers queries and taking on board some great feedback that has been given throughout the last year or more.

One major item that comes up extremely regularly is the lack of understanding of the bigger picture of the music programme from a parental perspective, how the group classes work, what they feed into as the children grow and develop etc.

We know that this can be very daunting to understand when you only find out information in bits and pieces as and when a query gets presented or an email comes through to your inbox!

We would therefore like to commence conquering this and promote transparency as mentioned previously in emails.

We believe the best way to do this is to have an information evening for the parents where we will go through the programme, let you know what classes feed into what down the lines, give you information on group/individual/orchestra/Jazz classes, highlight the various outings the children go on and much more!

We will also have time allocated at the latter end of the night for a questions and answers forum.

The night we have available to do this is:

Wednesday 2nd May 2018
7.30pm in the Orchestra Room

There will only be one offering of this before registration night (Thursday 31st May 2018), we would like it to be helpful for you all and productive for us so if you could please spread the word about this night to parents in the yard that might not read their emails as frequent as others we would greatly appreciate that as we would really like a good turn out of parents to this offering.

Thanks in advance
Shirley & Ruth

By St Canices Instrumental Music Programme|2019-04-30T13:38:06+01:00May 1st, 2018|Music|

Maytime Melodies 2018

The biennial Maytime Melodies concert is our main fundraiser and we rely heavily upon all monies raised by the concert to buy the many things required for the programme. This year we are hoping to use the monies raised to fund new flutes and percussion instruments as these area’s have grown immensely over the last 2 years. If you can help out in any way by buying a concert ticket, becoming a “Friend of Maytime Melodies” or donating a raffle prize, we would be extremely grateful.

Friends of Maytime Melodies
Traditionally, people involved in businesses locally have been given the opportunity to support the programme by advertising in the Maytime Melodies Programme. Following a suggestion by some parents, it was decided to extend this facility to all parents/guardians of children involved in the programme who may wish to be associated with and support the programme by becoming “Friends of Maytime Melodies”. The names of all “Friends” will be published in our Concert programme. If you would like to become a Maytime Melodies Friend, please submit a cheque for €20 made payable to St Canice’s Instrumental Music Programme by Monday 30th April 2018. These can be left into the green post box (music box) outside Kay’s office and shall be collected regularly.

Raffle Prizes
Donations of raffle prizes would be extremely welcome! If you would like to donate a raffle prize, please contact Shirley 085-1252233 or Ruth 087-9010764 and we shall arrange to have them ready for the concerts with you.

Concert Tickets
Tickets for the concerts are now on sale and may only be purchased from the Watergate Theatre booking office or online here. Tickets cannot be purchased from the school or from music committee members, and all queries, ticket returns etc should be directed to the Watergate Theatre. Tickets for the concerts tend to sell very quickly so you are advised to purchase your tickets early. Tickets are priced at €13 for adults and €7 for children. If you are in doubt which night your child is performing, please ask your child’s music teacher who will advise you.

Health & Safety
The Watergate Theatre has informed us that due to Health & Safety Inspections they will not accommodate any parents or children standing in the auditorium during the concerts. The concerts are a ticket only event and to avoid any unpleasantness they have asked that parents do not arrive without a ticket, as they will not be admitted. Please take note of this when purchasing tickets, if your child is performing on a night but you wish for them to stay to hear the other students perform, before or after their performance, then you shall need to purchase a ticket for them also. Please note that there is no where backstage for them to be minded so once they are finished performing they shall be returned to their parents – further detail on this to follow.

Rehearsing for Younger Children
A rehearsal will take place during school hours on the morning of Tuesday 22nd May between 9am – 1:30pm. A bus from the school has been organised to transport the children. We shall send out more detail on this closer to the date, i.e what groups need to bring their instruments to school that morning for rehearsal. If any parents are available to help on this morning can you please text Shirley on 0851252233 , all help would be greatly appreciated.

Running Order
The running order of the Maytime Melodies concerts is shown below. The length of the concert has been reduced in comparison to previous years and will therefore start at 7.30pm and finish around 9.15pm. All children involved in the music programme will perform in either one of the smaller groups or as part of the larger orchestra/jazz band/brass ensembles. We hope that the shorter concert time will enable parents and children to stay for the duration of the concert. This will provide the younger children in particular with an opportunity to see how they can progress up through the music programme.

Tuesday 22nd May 2018
1. Junior Infant Pre-Twinkle 1
2. Junior Infant Violins
3. 1st class String Ensemble
(Violins, Violas, Cellos & DB)
4. Percussion Groups – Junior Percussion, Senior Percussion, Orchestral Percussion & Jeremy’s Beginner Guitars.
5. Beginner Jazz Band
(Canice’s Cubs incl Tutti Flutti)
6. Junior Jazz Band
7. Junior Orchestra

Wednesday 23rd May 2018
1. Senior Infant Pre-Twinkle 2
2. Senior Infant Violins
3. Brass Ensemble (Pocket Trumpets, French Horns, Trombones & Trumpets)
4. Senior Infant Cellos
5. Recorder Ensemble (Year 1 & Year 2)
6. Groovy Guitars
7. Senior Jazz Band
8. Senior Orchestra

What to Wear
All children should wear their school uniform minus their jumper or cardigan (because of the heat backstage) with white knee length socks for girls and shoes if possible. No runners please! Also, if your child has a coat we would ask you to hold on to it in the auditorium.
The Senior & Junior Orchestras and Senior & Junior Jazz Bands children should wear their uniform along with the red music sweatshirt and white polo T-Shirt (again white knee length socks for girls). The music sweatshirts will be distributed before the event and will be taken back from the children at the Watergate Theatre after their performances on stage.

Drop Off Times
Below are the drop off times for the various groups. This year we have the largest number of children ever taking part in the Maytime Melodies concerts. The area backstage is very small and, for health and safety reasons, we would ask that where possible you only drop your child off at the allotted times below, and not any earlier.

No food or drinks permitted backstage, however, water will be provided for the children.
We are aware some children will be performing in a number of different acts and will therefore remain backstage until their next performance.

Pick Up Times
Below are also the pick-up times for the various groups. The Junior & Senior Infant Children (with the exception of the Senior Infant Cellos) can be collected from the coffee dock area upstairs in the Watergate Theatre after the Pre-Twinkle performance on both nights.

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Finally, the children have been working really hard to ensure that you enjoy our concerts and I’m sure that you will be immensely proud of them on the night. We appreciate the support that parents and families continue to show us and we look forward to two great nights of music making!

By St Canices Instrumental Music Programme|2019-04-30T13:38:06+01:00April 10th, 2018|Concerts, Music|

Senior Orchestra Win Peter Killian Cup at Feis Ceoil!

A huge congratulations to our Senior Orchestra who scored a fantastic score of 94% and won their competition at Feis Ceoil today in the RDS.

Also a huge congratulations to our Junior Orchestra who scored a fantastic score of 90% and came 2nd in the competition.

The children played their hearts out and it very evident through their performance that they had all worked extremely hard to achieve those results today. As the adjudicator said today “they made my day”, what a lovely statement to make, happy children hearing that!

This would not be possible to achieve without the dedication of Ruth, Margaret & Katie or the efforts and willingness of the students to learn. It also would not be possible without the teachers, the committee members & the parents who make themselves available so that the children can fulfill dreams and make memories like today. So, thank you all for all the help, support & dedication it is greatly appreciated by all 😊

Each and every one of the children were a pleasure to bring off for the day, their manners were exceptional, they are a credit to each one of you and a credit to St. Canice’s School.

I would also like to thank Mrs Comerford, Kay & the school teachers, for all their assistance, guidance & support throughout the year leading up to this. As you can imagine with 400+ children taking part in the music programme a lot of internal coordination takes place so children get the opportunity to participate in our music programme. This would not be possible without this support so a massive thank you is well deserved to the school.

By St Canices Instrumental Music Programme|2019-04-30T13:38:06+01:00March 20th, 2018|Competitions, Music|