Preparatory School | Senior School | Sixth Form

Imagine your child attending one of the top 3% of secondary schools in the UK

Imagine a school where 90% of classes have fewer than 20 pupils

Imagine a school where 100% of pupils achieve grades A* to B in Jewish Studies and Modern Hebrew GCSE examinations

We moved our son to Immanuel for two reasons: the standard of academic achievement required of its students and the love of, and passion for, religion that it instils in its students, making them proud of their beliefs.

PARENT OF YEAR 9 PUPIL

Music without Instruments

Wednesday, 7th November 2007

Itay Talgam, one of the leading conductors on the Israeli music scene, came to Immanuel College this week to give the Sixth Form an insight into conducting. Mr Talgam taught the fascinated audience how to take a close look at the conductor and interpret what message he wanted to be portrayed through the music. He played a variety of clips of conductors with their orchestra and then asked about his/her personality and teaching style.

The talk was highly interactive and the different aspects of music making provided stimulating discussion and kept all students intrigued.

Most interesting was discovering that there are different types of conductors: laid back conductors who trust their orchestra to deliver the piece and to put in all the effort required to succeed, conductors who are strict and want all notes played as written with no interpretations from the instrumentalists, and spoon-feeding conductors who were very encouraging but would not let the orchestra make mistakes to learn from them.

The whole sixth form learnt a valuable lesson from his talk. The metaphorical link between a conductor and a teacher had never struck a note with us before. In music, where the conductor can?t talk to the orchestra, physical communication is important to the outcome of the piece and therefore how the audience responds.

Our teachers give us the basis for good learning; they all have their individual styles like conductors, and different teachers make music with different pupils. In the end it is our responsibility to carry out their music to achieve results that the audience - our parents and ourselves - are proud of. Now the Immanuel College Sixth Form has the ability to perform our own concerts without the music lessons.

Dodie Levene U6