Music at JPC

Since its inception, St John Paul II Music Program has grown from strength to strength. From its first year growing from one music class, and one rock band to now offering multiple music classes from year 7 to 12 and having seventeen extra-curricular music ensembles. This growth has also stemmed throughout the community, allowing friends, family and the community to enjoy taking part in our many events and performances throughout the year. Our goal is to create a platform for any student to feel comfortable to explore their own creativeness, and for us to offer the support and structure to allow them to grow. Whether it be chasing your wildest dreams of being a performing musician or just relaxing and playing a few quiet songs with your friends, we have the program for you!

Contemporary Band/Ensemble Program – These bands are assembled using musicians who play more contemporary instruments. These bands include Rock Bands, Pop Bands, Unplugged Bands, etc. The instruments you will commonly find in these groups are Guitar, Bass, Vocals, Drums, Keyboards/Synthesizers, and Electronic drums/percussion. The integration of laptops and music production is also common in rehearsals and performances. Students learn to dissect modern/contemporary music and understand song form, meter and harmony, also learning valuable skills in teamwork and group participation. Rehearsals are held weekly during ILT where students meet, decide the focus of their repertoire, analyse and begin learning individual parts in a group setting. The focus is always performance based, aiming to include the students in one of the many performances held throughout the year, either at St John Paul II College or in the wider community, though students are only encouraged to do this once fully prepared. 

Jazz Band – The Jazz Band is a group of senior students who want to explore more jazz/funk/blues/70’s and 80’s style music. It is for more advanced students who have had experience playing music and participate in other music ensembles at JPC. The Jazz band rehearses once a week after school on Wednesday’s each week and are also the band who plays for our school musicals. At the moment there is only one Jazz Band but I would really love to have a Junior Jazz band. This is because most of the band are year 12’s who will be leaving us next year, so if you are interested in joining the jazz band, we’d love to hear from you. 

Concert Band – We have 3 Concert bands at JPC. The Junior, Intermediate and Senior Concert Bands. These groups involve a wider range of instruments including flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, French horn, trombone, tuba, euphonium, keyboard, bass guitar, electric guitar, drums and percussion. These groups are for anyone who would like to play an instrument, no prior experience is necessary to join the Junior Concert Band and as the players progress, they move through Intermediate and Senior Concert Band. ‘Senior’ doesn’t necessarily mean senior students, this year, there are year 7’s involved in the senior Concert Band because of their prior experience. Students rehearse once a week ILT and students always choose the repertoire for Concert band. The Concert Bands are always seeking new members to take on a new instrument.

Production Crew – Our production crew students are the vital key to our performing arts events. These students run all performing arts events throughout the year, not only at school but also on school performances in the community. They run all on the sound and lighting, including live band setup, pack down and sound management, live lighting including programming, and stage management. We currently have two production crew classes each week, Junior and Senior. These students meet after hours on a Tuesday afternoon and learn skills in workplace health and safety, live sound mixing, band setup and pack down, lighting programming and stage management. Another large part of production crew is scheduling, time management and teamwork. The students work together to manage who will be responsible for sound and lighting for the numerous events throughout the year and need to work seamlessly as a large team to get the job done within the specified timeframe. Numerous students have gone on to work within the sound and lighting at large scale ACT events and even shows and concerts in Sydney. 

Vocal Group – We have a Vocal group at JPC. Vocal is open to all students. There is always room for new vocal group members. The students always choose their repertoire for Vocal group so they always sing songs they enjoy. We work on solos as well as 3-part harmony in our songs. Students who want solos, get them and those who don’t want them, don’t have to have them. Rehearsals occur once a week during ILT and students choose all the repertoire they sing in the Vocal groups. The Vocal groups are responsible for all the singing at our school masses. It is a very special privilege to sing at these events and the students always feel a huge amount of pride. 

Ukulele/Guitar club and Piano club – These groups are run at lunchtimes (ukulele/guitar club on Wednesday lunch and piano club on Friday lunch) and are for any students, anytime. There is no payment required or no roll marked. Ukulele/guitar club is for students interested in learning ukulele or guitar while playing in a group. Piano club is for students who play the piano to perform or students who like listening to piano or want to come and support their friends and watch them perform. 

Performances – Having a thriving music program allows us to offer many performance opportunities to our students throughout the year. Each semester we have two major concerts held in our performing arts theatre. One concert is for our extra-curricular ensembles and the other is for all students involved in Instrumental lessons. These major concerts give a specific focus to our students from term to term, allowing them to work towards their performances and perform for family and friends.  Alongside these semesterly concerts we also create many other opportunities for our students to perform. “Tuesday Tunes” is a weekly event held outside the performing arts centre allowing any student within the school to jump up and have a go at performing their favourite piece of music. We have also had students involved in many community performances including Floriade, Gunghalin Events, The Schools Tour (Bands tour to local primary schools and perform), performances at The Grove. Our school Liturgical group has also been involved in leading the Mass at Holy Spirit Parish Gunghalin on numerous occasions. St John Paul II College has become a thriving hub for performance and creativity!! Get involved!!

Enrolment forms for each of the programs can be completed via the following links:

2024 Enrolment Forms

For further enquiries email – jpc.music@cg.catholic.edu.au