Music Conservatory puts on show to promote wind instruments |22 October 2020

The attentive students watching the performance (Photos: Anel Robert)

To understand the importance of wind instruments throughout the world, one must first appreciate the great diversity of social contexts in which they are used. Which types are played, who play them, and why?

Nowadays when children think about learning a musical instrument most of them will pick the guitar, drums, piano or even violins. However there is a whole catalogue of musical instruments that are left behind and forgotten about for the simple fact that they are perceived as ‘uncool’.

Antoine Souris, the head of the music programme at the National Conservatoire of Performing Arts is changing this belief one school at a time, by organising musical performances for students using wind instruments such as saxophones, clarinets and trumpets.

The first performance took place at the Mont Fleuri secondary school on Tuesday afternoon while the students were on their lunch break.

“The reason we are doing these performances is to promote wind instruments as most kids go for guitars or keyboards. It was an initiative that we were going to take at the start of the year but our plans were disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Mr Souris.

He continued by saying that in previous years they conducted a similar activity but focused on all instruments while this time they are only focusing on a specific group.

Mr Souris also added that the reason they decided to start at Mont Fleuri was because it is the closest school to the conservatoire.

“We have a group of students currently learning how to play musical instruments but we need more on wind instruments as we cannot form an ensemble with only guitars and pianos,” said Mr Souris.

Performing for the students were Anthony Hoareau on trumpets and Jean Quatre on the saxophone. They will be the two instructors students will be learning from if they sign up for the classes.

The head teacher of the school, Marc Arissol, remarked that it was an honour that the music conservatoire chose Mont Fleuri secondary to showcase their wind instruments and classes on offer.

On their part the students seemed to enjoy the performances as they cheered the musicians while they played. Some are even contemplating the idea of signing up.

Christophe Zialor