Charity Concert 2015

Sekolah Victory Plus has finally presented the second annual charity concert on Saturday 28th February 2015. Approximately 150 students actively took part in this magnificent musical performance. Four big divisions in every Thursday’s music lesson has been preparing the music for less than six months. They are choir, band, percussion, and orchestra. The theme of the concert this year is “Music for the Soul”.

Indeed, the program itself was a representation kind of music for our soul. With the grand opening song as an ‘Overture’, the orchestra, band and choir together performed “Don’t stop believing” of Journey (Glee version).  Elaine, grade 12, led the Sectional Alto Saxophone offering the harmony of peace and humanity by playing “Time for Us” and “Ode To Joy”. Solo piano by Gytha, grade 10, then brought the audience into calming yet elegance movement from Mac Dowell , Op. 46 No.2 “Improvisation” and Adolf Frey’s “Valse-Intermezzo”.  Duet flute and piano by Tasha and Jo Yuri played the charming yet famous instrumental Yiruma, “Kiss the Rain” and evergreen light-jazz “Fly me to the moon”.  String sectional led by violinist Irwan, grade 12, afterwards performed the  everlasting classical “Canon in D Major” of Johann Pachelbel. Victory Symphony Orchestra invited the audience to collect their memories of romance, love and life celebration by playing Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years” and Coldplay’s magical “Viva La Vida”.  

This year we also have a very uniqe concept in combining music concert together with art auction. In break time led by Ibu Neni, all paintings made by our visual art students have been sold with a spectacular price and will be donated directly to Indonesian Cancer Children Foundation (Yayasan Onkologi Anak Indonesia). This is exactly the main purpose of our annual school charity concert. To give the best thing we can do for the unfortunate souls.

After break a group of students led by Calvin, grade 11, performed a fun yet dynamic creative percussion like it was a musical ice-breaker of the show. Joanne, grade 12, led the band to unite everyone’s dream of togetherness by singing Oasis “Stand by Me” and “If I Ain’t Got You” of Alicia Keys. Such a display of united souls praying for a better and happier future, all of them then sang the closing song “Esok ‘kan Bahagia” (D’masiv feature Ariel, Giring, Momo) as it like the ‘Finale’ of the gala show.

This magnificent performance from students has been achieved thanks to everyone’s hard work. First credit of course has to go to the tutorial team:  Pak Dede, Pak Fanny, Pak Didik, Pak Ujik, Pak Yanto  and Ibu Evelyn. In a such limited musical environment and facility they can collaborate together to encourage our challenging students, to improve a lot of technical areas. Credit also goes to committee who has been fantastic in showing great teamwork. Especially Pak Adrian for the bright ideas in making concert handbook, Pak Afif for preparing the superb paintings in Art Auction. Bu Christina and Bu Desi also provided fantastic teamwork for the stage and soundsystem.  The biggest credit of course goes to the students themselves. The last week preparation was very exhausting and adsorbing everyone’s energy at the highest anxiety level. But the result at the end is cheerfully amazing and worth it. Donation collected until now is reaching more than 70 million rupiah. Bravo! See you again in next year concert!

Music Objectives in Middle Year Program

Four Essential Objectives

Based on IB Subject Guide 2014, Music as Performing Arts in MYP has four essential objectives :

1. Knowing and Understanding

Through the study of theorists and practitioners of the arts, students discover the aesthetics of art forms and are able to analyse and communicate in specialized language. Using explicit and tacit knowledge alongside an understanding of the role of the arts in a global context, students inform their work and artistic perspectives.

In order to reach the aims of arts, students should be able to :
i. demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the art form studied, including concepts, processes, and the use of subject-specific terminology
ii. demonstrate an understanding of the role of the art form in original or displaced contexts
iii. use acquired knowledge to purposefully inform artistic decisions in the process of creating artwork

2. Developing skills

The acqusition and development of skills provide the opportunity for active participation in the art form and in the process of creating art. Skill application allows students to develop their artistic ideas to a point of realization. The point of realization could take many forms. However, it is recognized as the moment when student makes a final commitment to her artwork by presenting it to audience. Skills are evident both process AND product.

In order to reach the aims of arts, students should be able to:
i. demonstrate the acquisition and development of the skills and techniques of the art form studied
ii. demonstrate the application of skills and techniques to create, perform and/or present art

3. Thinking creatively

The arts motivate students to develop curiosity and purposefully explore and challenge boundaries. Thinking creatively encourages students to explore the unfamiliar and experiment in innovative ways to develop their artistic intentions, their processes and their work. Thinking creatively enables students to discover their personal signature and realize their artistic identity.

In order to reach the aims of arts, students should be able to :
i. develop a feasible, clear, imaginative and coherent artistic intention
ii. demonstrate a range and depth of creative-thinking behaviors
iii. demonstrate the exploration of ideas to shape artistic intention through to a point of realization

4. Responding

Students should have the opportunity to respond to their world, to their own art and to the art of others. A response can come in many forms; creating art as a response encourages students to make connections and transfer their learning to new settings. Through reflecting on their artistic intention and the impact of their work for audience and themselves, students become more aware of their own artistic development and the role that arts play in their lives. Students learn that the arts may initiate change as well as being a response to change.

In order to reach the aims of arts, students should be able to :
i.  construct meaning and transfer learning to new settings
ii. create an artistic response that intends to reflect or impact on the world around them
iii. critique the artwork of self and others.

EXAMPLES for Music in Four Objectives :

What might students KNOW and UNDERSTAND in music?

• Tradition and musical heritage from different parts of the world, i.e popular music, music industry, musical theater, developments in music technology
• Current and emerging musical practices
• Methods of recording and communicating musical ideas such as various notation systems

What skills might students DEVELOP in music? 

• Their ability to develop and carry out performances
• Skills, techniques and process to create their own music, finding ways to capture it in performance, notation, recording or presentation
• An ability to experiment with sound sources, improvisation, practice and rehearsal routines

How might students think CREATIVELY in music? 

• By experimenting with the artistic processes involved in making music
• By initiating, exploring and developing projects that are rewarding and challenging
• By creating their own music or improvising sections added to publish musical scores

How might students RESPOND to or through music? 

• By developing their own musical style inspired by a particular genre or artist
• Through participating in "listen and respond" activities
• By creating music that demonstrates their exposure to various musical cultures

Music in the curriculum

Music Grade 7 - 10

Music is a very essential part of curriculum for MYP secondary students Year 1 until Year 6 (Grade 7 until 12) in Sekolah Victory Plus, Bekasi. Furthermore, to make it more challenging and deepening, it is an elective course for students Grade 10 to 12, which they will choose a very specific instrument in 3 big main division : orchestra, band and choir. Therefore students from grade 10 to 12 are expected to be fluent in playing instrument and singing as well. To have a continuous musical appreciation as a lifelong culture, people can only start it by understanding music from the very core : Performing. Music performance is the entry gate of music education for our kids. It is also the future of our music cultural development as a nation.  This is the main objective of music curriculum in Sekolah Victory Plus.

To formulate a very serious curriculum in producing a very serious music is nevertheless impossible for general school like this since we are not a music school nor the one that affiliated to any music institution. Music curriculum has also the biggest challenge to adapt the National Curriculum in a very dynamic country like Indonesia. However, big optimism grows up every year since many schools can make a quiet good performing arts and exhibition for so many years. A few are very brilliant to make annual concerts since they have an established school symphony orchestra. Sekolah Victory Plus is one of them.

To make all of these things happen we make a very sorted general outlines for our music education in Sekolah Victory Plus. Since we are an IB School we want to highlights 3 Main Outcomes in our music curriculum. Those 3 are Listening, Composing and Performing. Thus, grade 7 until 12 is very familiar with these three main outcomes in the learning experience. We hope that this blog can helps you to understand what your children should achieved based on their level.