Music
Distinguished musicians visit the school to give masterclasses. The music school has several main practice areas and caters for specialist, special provision and general musicians. The school comprises pre-prep, junior school, lower school, and upper school, including a sixth form.
The Music School was formerly the house of the Archdeacon of Wells. It was rebuilt by Archdeacon Andrew Holes between 1450 and 1470, possibly retaining some 13th century work and further restoration was undertaken by Edmund Buckle in 1886. It is a Grade II* listed building.
The school's connection with the cathedral offers a range of opportunities. There is a school service every Sunday evening and Monday morning in the cathedral, as well as music concerts. Chapel, chamber and cathedral choir rehearsals and performances are performed in both the cathedral and the Music School. Government funding of £3.5 million was obtained in 2008 to build a new concert hall and classrooms at Cedars Hall.
Read more about this topic: Wells Cathedral School
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“A man in all the world’s new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain.
One who the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“On the first days, like a piece of music that one will later be mad about, but that one does not yet distinguish, that which I was to love so much in [Bergotte’s] style was not yet clear to me. I could not put down the novel that I was reading, but I thought that I was only interested in the subject, as in the first moments of love when one goes every day to see a woman at some gathering, or some pastime, by the amusements to which one believes to be attracted.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“If music in general is an imitation of history, opera in particular is an imitation of human willfulness; it is rooted in the fact that we not only have feelings but insist upon having them at whatever cost to ourselves.... The quality common to all the great operatic roles, e.g., Don Giovanni, Norma, Lucia, Tristan, Isolde, Brünnhilde, is that each of them is a passionate and willful state of being. In real life they would all be bores, even Don Giovanni.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)