DSO School Tour 2023

For some schools, a regular music education programme isn’t possible due to both funding and accessibility (for example, some schools simply don’t have a teacher on staff who can teach music), so our tour is an important means of at least introducing the kids to music and musicians, in real life.

This year, we’re taking six DSO musicians: Emily Sterk (clarinet), Ben Walker (trombone), Rob Craigie (percussion), Michelle Brown (violin), Cameron Monteath (viola) and Boudewijn Keenan (cello). They’ll be playing a mixture of tunes from the worlds of classical music, TV, film, and even klezmer! Many of the pieces feature one instrument in particular – for example, the Peter Gunn Theme features trombone, while Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade features clarinet. And in “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from the film Encanto, all the players will get to play a bit of percussion! (Shh, we haven’t told the players that yet…)

The music was arranged by Justine Pierre, a stalwart of the music community, and our musicians will be ably transported from school to school by Rob Duffy, himself also a longtime music educator. We thank Cooke Howlison Toyota for the loan of their courtesy van, which enables us to travel easily with all our gear from school to school. We also gratefully thank Port Otago for their support of our tour. Keep an eye on our Facebook page in November, when we hit the road!