We are receiving more enquiries for assistance with the Music Aptitude Tests and Scholarships than we can handle so we have asked local music teacher Curtis to join the team at the SE22 Piano School. Curtis will be offering Zoom lessons during the May/June half-term on Bank Holiday Monday 31st May and June 2nd- 4th. All these dates can be booked on Eventbrite and we cover all UK schools by tailoring the lesson to the exact needs of your particular school. We ask you to specify your musical experience and chosen schools at the time of booking a ticket.
Music Scholarship & Aptitude Test Lessons
Wherever you are based in the UK we can assist you with online lessons via Zoom. Schools covered include:
Abraham Darby Academy Archbishop Blanch School Ashmole Academy Brentwood Ursuline Convent Bristol Cathedral Choir School Bushey Meads Camden Girls Cardinal Vaughan Chancellor’s Chelsea Academy Clement Danes Coopers Coborn Crayford Academy Dame Alice Owen’s Ealing Fields Enfield Grammar Gilberd School Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College Hertfordshire & Essex High School Hockerill Anglo-European King David & St. Edwards College Kingsdale Foundation School Leventhorpe School Marylebone Mill Hill County Old Swinford Ongar Academy Ousedale School Parmiter’s Prendergast Queen’s School Bushey Rickmansworth Shenfield St Mary’s and St John’s CE St Marylebone CofE St Paul’s Way Trust St Cecilia’s SW Herts Consortium Twyford Watford Grammar West London Free Woodlands School
Lockdown rules are easing and hugs are officially allowed. Who will you be hugging this week? We’ve all had our first Covid vaccine and we are looking forward to getting the whole team together soon for the first time since lockdown started over a year ago!
Alex, Mirna & Lorraine ~Music Teachers at the SE22 Piano School
This morning I received an email with some feedback from a student that I was preparing for Music Scholarship entry to Prendergast and Kingsdale school. The great news is that she has secured a music scholarship to both schools. If you are looking for some help with the Music Aptitude Tests or any advice about the scholarship procedure, please book a lesson with our team. We can’t individually respond to emails looking for advice as we fit these lessons around our weekly teaching commitments but we have made any gaps in our schedule available on Eventbrite for ease of booking. We will also be adding more times to the schedule in the school holidays so Follow the Music Scholarship Ticket Page if you would like to find out about new dates as soon as they released.
We’ve loved seeing all the lockdown puppies coming to lessons. Here’s Junior and Otto outside the piano school.
Junior, Niky and LewisOtto the Schnauzer
And the final good news of the week is that I decided to celebrate keeping a business running during a pandemic by purchasing a new piano from Piano Lobby in Sydenham. It arrived today and it looks and sounds wonderful. Our old digital piano is being donated to Westminster House Youth Club in Nunhead.
Lorraine Liyanage, Head Teacher at the SE22 Piano School
Piano School Admin:
The invoice for June/July lessons is due no later than 5pm on Monday 24 May. Invoices will be sent out by our bookkeeper very soon for a block of 7 lessons.
Term Dates:
19 April – 29 May (6 lessons) Half-Term 30 May – 6 June 7 June – 24 July ( 7 lessons)
Hello from Lorraine at the SE22 Piano School. We are loving being back in the piano studio in East Dulwich and we have been making lots of changes behind the scenes during lockdown.
A very warm welcome to our new musicians: Ava, Azizan, Sophia, Hannah, Willow, Jan, Noah, Mikhael, Viva and Anne.
We’ve started enrolling new students for instruments other than piano as our team of teachers is a bunch of very talented multi-instrumentalists. I’m wondering if it’s time to rebrand as the SE22 Music School?! Did you know that Mirna teaches guitar, singing and violin? We also have a few spaces reserved for Year 5 students to prepare for the upcoming Music Scholarship entrance tests to state secondary schools. These can be booked on Eventbrite and spaces are limited during term-time but we will have much more availability in the school holidays.
We have a wonderful local gardener working on the front of the shop to add in some planters and bike storage. The bike and scooter storage will be ready shortly after the half-term break. You are welcome to leave items here at your own risk. Please bring a lock. Sabrina is based in East Dulwich and runs a company called Wolves in London that offers garden design and maintenance and also very lovely and reasonably priced houseplant boxes. I have lots of her plants at home and have just ordered some for the studio too.
June Instagram Competition We are running an Instagram competition in June. Tag us in a photo of you scooting or cycling to your piano lesson and/or using the new storage racks and we will put your name in the hat to win an Oddono’s gift voucher. We are @se22pianoschool on Instagram.
Also here’s a peek at the courtyard garden – it’s looking simply stunning and it’s a very chilled-out space where the teachers enjoy eating our lunch and checking our emails.
This week’s big news is that we have donated the old digital piano to Westminster House Youth Club in Nunhead and a new upright piano from Piano Lobby is arriving next Tuesday. For those of you with upright pianos at home, it must have been several months, if not years, since you last tuned them so we recommend the following two local piano tuners: Robert Parr ~ 07952 411156 AMH Pianos ~ https://www.tuningpianos.co.uk ~ 07385 124917
A few weeks ago I tentatively put a date in the diary for an end of year student music recital at our usual venue of St Barnabas Parish Hall in Dulwich Village. It looks like this will be able to go ahead now that indoor events are able to resume from May 17th so I’ve put the tickets on sale.
We are delighted to hold our end of year student music recital in person finally! All instruments welcome so if you play another instrument, please bring that along too and perform for us. Here is the event info and the ticket booking link.
Saturday 10 July 5.15pm – 6.30pm approx St Barnabas Parish Hall in Dulwich Village 23 Dulwich Village, London SE21 7BT All proceeds to Alzheimer’s Society.
Each performer needs a ticket which is priced at £10 per performer. Audience members may attend free of charge. All proceeds of this recital will go to the Alzheimer’s Society. I am fundraising for them this year as it is a cause very close to my heart as my dad suffers with dementia. You can read more about why I have chosen this charity here.
St Barnabas Parish Hall is a big venue with lots of seating so grab a chair when you arrive and please arrange your seating in your household bubble. Siblings of all ages welcome. We would like to film the concert and put this on YouTube as well as use some photos on our social media pages so please indicate if that is OK at the time of booking your ticket. You do not need to let us know which piece(s) you will play, you can decide this with your teacher nearer to the time of the event and then announce your pieces on the day. We will put together a running order which we will send by email on the 9th of July. Ticket sales will close on the 1st of July. We always do a group photo at the end but we do ask that if we do not have your permission to use this photo online then please stand out for the first photo and then the second group photo will be for you to take your own photos for personal use only. All performers will receive a medal of participation. The teachers will be awarding trophies to students that have been working hard during lockdown. These will be announced on the day!
For students working on Trinity Online Exams, here is the info you need to make your exam submission. We are anticipating that exams will take place soon in person but we will keep you updated about that. If you’ve sat any online exams during lockdown, please let us know your results and maybe even send us a photo of you with your certificate.
Welcome to new teacher Paul Evernden. Paul is an experienced composer and multi-instrumentalist specialising in both the piano and clarinet. He has a PhD in Composition from King’s College London and is a founding member of the Eos ensemble which is dedicated to the little-known as well as the brand new.
He is an experienced teacher with more than a decade of working with children and young people from the age of 5 up, teaching privately, in primary and secondary schools across London, as well as for several of the capital’s leading music services. Paul has worked with children with SEN and has experience of teaching 1:1 as well as in small groups; he also teaches Theory for preparation for ABRSM exams.
In his free time, you might find Paul down by the river Thames in his native SE16 mudlarking.
