Published on: 1 November 2013



For the fourth year in a row, Christ Church was fortunate to have the amazing talents and sounds of multi-instrumentalist Adam Page. This year Adam spent two weeks at the School, as the Music Department’s artist-in-residence, where he drew Preparatory and Senior boys into his unique style of performing.

Director of Music Kevin Gillam said the critically acclaimed musician’s signature style involved recording live instruments and beat boxing onto loop pedals and composing spontaneous grooves. Adam worked with all Senior School music classes in Weeks 1 and 2 and mainly Years 4 to 6 in the Prep School.

“With Prep boys he demonstrated the art of loop pedals and asked the boys to offer groups of words and phrases that created effective sound bites, from which a loop could be generated. For example, one student came up with “baboons eat pizzas”, which when repeated and overlaid, forms a very rhythmic and effective pattern,” Mr Gillam said.

In the Senior School, most classes were built around the idea of setting up a chord/rhythm structure over which the boys learned to improvise and experiment with melody/harmony. He has his loop pedal as well as saxophone and other small keyboards.

Year 5 boys and Year 9 music classes had an opportunity to create original pieces, which were performed at the Prep and Senior Assemblies respectively. Adam was asked to create a piece involving all Year 5 classes, who come to music as separate groups. “Within each class, he asked the boys to generate a bass line riff, broke the group into four parts, composed a four-part soundscape using xylophones as the core instrument,” Mr Gillam said.

“The rehearsals then involved getting all four classes together in the Chapel and mapping out the movement of each class onto and off the instruments, while keeping the piece going with the use of a single vibraphone player.”

For the talented Year 9 Music class, Adam identified groups of similar instrument groups and created a basic harmonic pattern. “Over this, he then taught the more advanced and adventurous players the art of improvisation, which to most of our young players is a scary proposition in not having any music to follow,” he said.

“The class band, called The Unaccompanied Minors, gave the piece the title Time Rewind, which involved the entire class on the harmonic-rhythmic with soloists including Leo Li (saxophone), Eliot Roberts (piano), and Nowar Koning and Lachie Higgins (melodica) providing some solo improvisations.”

Adam’s visit was made possible thanks to a Parents’ Association grant.