Music

Music is alive and very well indeed at Morrison's Academy. The Department occupies roomy and well-resourced accommodation on the ground floor of the Ferntower Building and offers an enviable level of curricular and extra-curricular provision. There is a thriving instrumental tuition scheme and a busy programme of extra-curricular rehearsals and performances, with strong links to the local community.

Nearly half the school's pupils take instrumental lessons from a team of ten visiting instructors, and there is a wide range of groups and choirs which rehearse and perform throughout the year. Within the Primary School there are two Choirs, an Orchestra and a Ceilidh Band, and the Secondary School has four Choirs, a String Orchestra, Wind Band and Swing Band, as well as a much sought-after Pipe Band which plays regularly at Murrayfield Rugby Internationals. In addition smaller ensembles (String Quartet, Brass Group and various Wind Groups) operate as and when occasion demands.

We also have a well-established tradition of stage productions involving music. Two highly successful recent shows, "Guys and Dolls" and "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" have further increased the school's reputation in this sphere, and last session's S6 pupils have now passed into legend by putting their own particular and inimitable stamp on that perennial G&S favourite "The Pirates of Penzance". In the Primary School, annual workshop presentations in collaboration with Scottish Opera For All over the last few years have ensured a good grounding for all pupils in music theatre, and the fruits of their experience have been plain to see - Stephen Sondheim's "Into The Woods" was a notable triumph and last year's "How To Eat Like A Child" provided more quality entertainment, if in a slightly different vein.

Further afield, we have been fortunate to establish an unusual musical partnership with the Louise Schroeder Gymnasium in Munich which involves groups from both schools in alternate annual "home and away" exchange visits to rehearse and perform jointly a wide variety of music. International co-operation of this type offers great rewards, both cultural and social, and adds considerable value to the educational opportunities offered by Morrison's Academy.

Morrison's Academy musicians are also frequently to be found beyond the school campus, for instance in the Perth Youth Orchestra and Central Groups, and even further afield in national bodies such as the National Children's Orchestra of Scotland and the National Youth Choir of Scotland. The girls of our Chamber Choir are regular - and successful - visitors to the Coleraine International Choral Festival

A regular annual round of concerts, Christmas music, competitions and local community events outwith the school completes the profile of this busy department, which aims to offer gainful musical occupation to all pupils, whatever their interest or skill within the subject.