Highcliffe School smashed it at the New Milton Music Festival this weekend! 

The annual festival runs over two weekends with local schools competing in a celebration of musical talent. Piano, guitar and voice classes took place in the first weekend and this weekend was the turn of the ensembles and the brass, woodwind, percussion and string solos. Last weekend Mya, Aviana, Eloise and Toby has already won two silver medals and two bronze medals between them.     

This Saturday the Highcliffe Jazz Band started the day off and won the first trophy of the day with a distinction in the Large Mixed Ensembles class.   

Next came the Large Sectional Ensembles which featured the Highcliffe Woodwind Ensemble (distinction), Highcliffe Guitar Ensemble (distinction) and the Highcliffe Percussion Ensemble (honours) who were the overall victors taking the trophy for this class.   

The Highcliffe String Ensemble battled hard against seven schools and achieved a respectable merit for their performance.   

The Highcliffe Brass Ensemble tied first place in their class and brought home another trophy.   

Sophie, Destiney and Tilly all got distinctions in the Grade 5 solo class with Tilly winning gold and Destiney silver.   

Amelia (distinction), Laila (distinction) and Katie (honours) played solos in the Grade 6 class with Katie winning the gold medal.   

Katie and Sophie also won the Intermediate Jr Brass Ensemble and took home the trophy for this class.   

The Highcliffe Brass Ensemble and Katie came back to play in the Gala Concert Sunday evening: Brass played Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple and Katie played an advanced horn solo called Loch Lomond. Poppy, who won first place and gold medal distinction in the Grade 5 recorder solo, was also invited back to play in the Gala Concert.   

In other categories 

• First place and a gold medal distinction went to Katie for Grade 3 harp 
•  First place and a gold medal distinction for Eddie in the Grade 3 drum kit solo 
• Hannah (and Mum) also won gold in the vocal duets class and took home the trophy 
• Second place and silver medal distinction for Sophie in the Grade 4 violin solo
• Third place and bronze medal merit for Sophie in the musical theatre vocal solo 

Zadie was also a gold medal winner for solo strings and won trophies for both the Grade 8 and Advanced Strings Recital scoring honours in each class. Zadie came back to headline at the Gala Concert on Sunday evening with a stunning performance of the first movement from Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 4 with a cadenza that she had written. 

Highcliffe School would like to thank our amazing team of Music specialists for all their hard work in preparing our students for this event – Mrs Taylor, Mrs Wallace, Mr Mellish, Mr Handy and Mr Potter.