Renowned saxophonist, composer and educator Mike Hall kept QE’s senior musicians on their toes with a masterclass on jazz improvisation.
His hour-long, richly illustrated, online talk focused on examples of improvisation by two of the jazz greats, Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis.
The boys now have a couple of weeks to submit recordings of their own improvisations before Mike runs another two masterclasses in which he will offer them direct feedback on their work.
Director of Music Ruth Partington said: “This was a great event and we are very lucky to be able to welcome a player of Mike’s stature ‘to’ QE. At this time of year, we would normally be holding our annual Jazz Evening, so the timing of this first masterclass was particularly appropriate.
“Mike’s talk combined the perfect mix of approachability with some challenging concepts for our advanced students. He talked about how to improvise over chords using the notes of the chord, about guide tones and about specific scales such as minor pentatonics.
“And he included some live demonstrations on Zoom: it was wonderful to hear him play.
“The audience clearly enjoyed his presentation, and there were some interesting questions at the end.”
The class briefly covered the history of jazz, with Mike stressing that it is an “aural music…[that] should be learned initially by listening to and emulating great players”. He moved on to the specifics of improvisation, including the need to acquire the requisite skills, such as “strengthening the connection between your ears and fingers”.
Mike was Head of Jazz Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music for 20 years, during which time he directed well over 100 concerts with the RNCM Big Band. He still teaches at the RNCM and has also taught at many jazz summer schools and been a consultant and composer for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM – a Music examinations board).
He began with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and then spent 20 years with Michael Garrick, the late English jazz pianist and composer – a period which saw them tour Malaysia as well as make several CD recordings and national radio broadcasts.
Today, Mike is a regular member of the Echoes of Ellington Orchestra and runs his own jazz duo, quartet and octet, for which he also writes.
A video of the masterclass can be seen on the QE Music department’s YouTube channel.
Congratulating the pair formally with Headmaster Neil Enright last term, Director of Music Ruth Partington paid tribute to colleagues who had helped them and expressed the hope that their achievement would be a foretaste of even more singing successes to come.
Eeshan explained how his audition had gone. “There were two senior members of the choir, including the conductor, who listened to me perform and then got me to complete a few exercises to test my ability. I performed an Italian song called Dolente immagine di Fille mia and got special commendation for singing in Italian.
Joel, who has been having singing lessons since the beginning of Year 8, also acknowledged Mr Bowden’s help. In his audition, he performed Where the Bee Sucks by the 18th-century British composer, Thomas Arne. “I feel like my singing has developed massively as a result of these lessons.”
Building on the success
Both venues were chosen because they were large enough to allow full social distancing.
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Boys and staff enjoyed tucking into a Christmas lunch with all the trimmings. Year 7 boys enjoyed an adapted version of the carol service, held this year at the School, instead of at the parish church.
In normal years, QE’s Service of Lessons and Carols takes place in St John the Baptist Church in Barnet, with a congregation including staff and all the Year 7 boys, as well as musicians and readers drawn from other year groups.
“This gave our Year 13 boys a chance to sing at St John’s, and our Year 7s got to see what the church is like – on video at least,” the Headmaster said. “Hearing the carols ringing out from the Main School Hall lent a wonderfully festive atmosphere to the School, and our Year 7s savoured the opportunity to become part of this well-loved QE tradition.”
The service also included performances of the popular traditional carols: Once in Royal David’s City; O Little Town of Bethlehem; O Come all ye Faithful, and Hark the Herald Angels Sing!
Earlier in the week, pupils relished their Christmas lunch, with the catering team pulling out all the stops to serve up a festive feast of roast turkey or wild mushroom filo pastry crown, with pigs-in-blankets, stuffing, carrots, Brussel sprouts, parsnips, cranberry jelly and gravy, followed by Christmas pudding or yule log.
Parents, pupils and staff have been donating non-perishable food items, clothing and blankets over recent weeks, and yesterday a group of Year 9 volunteers helped to load a record number of bags into a QE minibus, ready for delivery.
Director of Music Ruth Partington decided to use technology to showcase the boys’ musicianship and devised a creative way to recreate the experience of performing together.
The recordings 
Other 
The Senior Chamber Concert featured a restricted audience in the Main School Hall, but was also filmed and broadcast online so that the wider QE community could see it in real time.
Playing instruments ranging from the electric guitar to the flute, they were drawn from Year 11 and the Sixth Form. The repertoire was similarly diverse, from Beethoven (Year 12 pianist Alex Woodcock performed the Sonata in G Op.14 Allegro) to contemporary American guitarist Steve Vai’s Die to Live (performed on the electric guitar by Kirtinandan Koramutla, of Year 11).
Year 12 alto saxophonist Conor Parker-Delves brought the evening to a close with his performance of Pequeña Czarda by Pedro Iturralde, a Spanish saxophonist and composer celebrating his 91st birthday this year, who composed the virtuoso piece in 1949.