News The Joy of Music-Making in Abundance at the Junior House Music Competition 18.06.2026

In June we enjoyed a Junior House Music Competition of staggeringly good quality. Across a number of solo, duet and solo competitions, 166 pupils gave a total of 173 wonderfully well-prepared performances. Pupils also acted as accompanists and arrangers, and organised, rehearsed and prepared all of their own duet and ensemble entries.

There were a huge number of highlights, not least our (in)famous Kitchen Sync category, in which pupils are required to perform on anything that isn’t a musical instrument….! . Many of the stand-out moments, however, were those moments where pupils entered four or five different categories; when pupils demonstrated a huge amount of resilience and courage to push themselves out of their comfort zones; and, best of all, where our pupils celebrated each others’ performances and achievements. For us, these moments truly captured the spirit of the competition. Our adjudicators, Laura Tebbutt (West End star whose credits include Mrs Doubtfire and School of Rock) and Philip Berg (formerly Director of Music at St Paul’s Juniors and now Master of the Music at The King’s Chapel of the Savoy) were full of praise for our pupils’ performances. 

The Final was full of simply outstanding performances, and it would have been easy to forget that the performers were only in Years 7-9…! We were very fortunate to welcome Rosie Whitfield, Head of Junior Guildhall, to be our guest adjudicator. Rosie spoke incredibly warmly of our pupils, and there was a wonderful feel-good atmosphere to the evening.

Many congratulations to all of the overall winners, including Ottilie in Year 7 (overall Class 2 Winner), Miharu in Year 8 (overall Class 3 Winner), Bella in Year 8 (overall Vocal Classes winner) and the jazz quartet Banned Sprinkles (overall Duet/Ensembles winner).

However, as Mr Langworthy (Director of Music) commented, the real stars of the show were the 166 pupils who crossed the stage to give such wonderful performances. Bravo to all of them!