An open letter to Hawley Place School

I love that the school make the effort to put on concerts and shows, I really do. I especially love that, right from an early age, all the children are encouraged to perform, and I see many happy, confident children, who appear to feel largely at ease in a public performance. This is great, and while there may be some who will prefer, in later life, to be behind the scenes, I believe that this early exposure can only be a good thing.

However, there are a couple, well, a few, points I'd like, if I may, to make.

A few months ago I attended the school for "An Evening of Glee!", which was a truly inspirational performance. I gather this had been a follow on from a day of theatre and dance provided by an outside agent. Allow me to praise this excellent concert/show. It was one of the best things I've seen performed at the school. And do you want to know why it was so good? Of course you do.

It was good because it was short. It was good because every single number the girls performed had been practised until every girl performing was able to do the dances without looking round to check on their mates, and they were able to sing the songs in tune and in tempo. I know that, in any setting, there will be people who can sing better than others, but making sure that the girls know all the words, and have practised until they are confident goes a long way to making the whole sound a lot better. The girls were excited to perform in the show, and I was on the receiving end of none of the "We're supposed to do this song, but we've not had any time to practice it." whining to which I am usually subjected.

While the performance was not faultless (and this is much of the excitement of live music), nothing stands out as grating.

Let's revisit that "short" part, shall we? This performance was, by the time I watched it, compressed into a merciful 45 minutes. What? How can you have a performance lasting only 45 minutes? I was so surprised I actually checked my watch, and was hesitant to leave, in case I was going to be considered rude!

Now, let's move on to the normal Hawley Place concerts.

I’m really tired today because last night I had to pick up Lottie from the school after an evening performance of "Songs inspired by Hairspray." This thing went on until past 10:30.You'd have thought, given that this was an evening show, I'd have attended. Well, I probably would have done, except that the first I was aware of this show was when Lottie told me, either earlier this week, or late last week, that she would need to be in school by 7 o'clock. Yes, you read that right, the show was 3 hours long. The next indication that there was such a show was one of those aforementioned whines.

Have none of you ever heard of advertising? Marketing, maybe? No? Well let me explain. It's the method by which you inform your intended audience that something fabulous is coming. And no, I'm sorry, but the single line in the printed calendar isn't advertising. Since the calendar is a singularly opaque document in the first place, I find myself missing more than I see, despite my termly attempts to go through and mark everything and anything pertaining to my girls' year groups. In the junior school the children are encouraged to draw pictures of which the best/favourites are chosen to appear on the cover of the program handed out to the audience. That's not advertising or marketing, either.

It may be childish, but how about getting each girl to produce, either on the computer, or using pens/pencils/crayons and paper a poster. Enough of those plastered round the school should catch the odd eye, I'd have thought.

They are all, without exception, too damn long. Sure, I would like to see my girl sing. Of course I would, but given the number of girls in either the junior or senior school, I'm quite happy to see her do just the one number. Unfortunately, every single concert I've attended at the school has consisted of many (sometimes 4) songs from each group. Since this isn't limited to just year groups, but various vocal groups as well (not to mention the inevitable instrumental solos), 4 songs starts to look more like 40 songs for the entire of the junior school. And between each song, all the children need to be led on or off the stage and microphones need to be handed out or collected. All this change over routine adds minutes to each song, because getting children to sit/stand exactly where you want them is akin to herding kittens (or octopuses!)

In addition to which, I'm subjected, in the days leading up to the concert, to the cries of "I have to do a duet with Johnny, but we're not allowed to practice!", and "We haven't been given the words or tune, and we're supposed to sing it tomorrow!" Every time my girls say one of these things to me, my heart sinks a little, as I realise how shaky the performances are going to be.

Rehearsals, rehearsals, rehearsals. I'd say it again, but if you haven't got it now, it's never going to sink in. Allow me, if I may, to digress. When I was in secondary school, our choir group was asked, by the Sixth Form College, to learn the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. We rehearsed this for weeks, excited because we were going to be singing with the sixth form, in a proper concert. We were good! Well, as good as a school choir can be, you understand, but we were certainly confident, and had the words only because we were all to wear the same, and carry the crib sheet - it was the look the music director wanted. As it happened, we were great - when we sang the Hallelujah Chorus. Sadly we didn't realise that we were supposed to knowALL the choral parts of Handel's Messiah, so for everything else we tried hard not to raise our voices above those of the "proper" choir, because we were clueless.

And that's what you get if you don't allow the children to rehearse. As it happens, Handel's Messiah was a huge success, but it wasn't a success because of our school.

Last year both my girls were involved in a showcase for Renton Dance Studio, at which I know a number of your girls dance. They were, at the time, attending a tap class every Tuesday, and this class was given a dance to perform at the show. That's right, just the one dance. Some of the girls in the class attended more than one dance group, and thus were involved in more than one number in the show. But each class spent the entire term practising only their number until they were almost sick of it and the music for it. But do you know what the end result was? A fabulous showcase, highlighting the talents of the girls (and the organisational skills of the staff). Each dance was not too long, the changeovers between the numbers had been rehearsed so that each person knew where they were supposed to be at any time during the show.

But my question, today, is "Why can Hawley Place, with it's abundance of enthusiastic, energetic and talented teachers, not produce a performance of equal brevity and professionalism?"

Oh, I know, you've still got to teach lessons to the children. That'll be one of the excuses, wont it? But that's not good enough - you're trying to teach the children half a dozen songs for the show. Cut it down to one song for each performing group, and maybe they'll actually get to know the song they're supposed to be singing. And only teaching one song per group cannot be too much of a burden on the staff or cut into teaching time too much. Can it?

This one little change to the planning of your next concert could reap astounding rewards. The concert, instead of being discussed as the behemoth they usually are, will be praised by students and parents alike. We, the parents, will begin to look forward to, not dread, the coming shows.