Arts & Music

We offer a comprehensive programme of instrumental and vocal tuition in a suite of purpose-built, sound-proofed rooms. Our team of highly skilled peripatetic staff, many of whom lead high-profile concert careers, visits the School and teach around 600 music lessons each week.

Tuition is available for all orchestral and band instruments, as well as for singing, organ, jazz improvisation, music technology and music theory.

We are a centre for termly ABRSM and Trinity College London exams and offer aural and theory training.

A varied programme of around 70 ensembles takes place on a weekly basis. Our largest groups include two full symphony orchestras, three string orchestras, three wind bands and a big band. We have a strong choral emphasis with six choirs, covering both classical and non-classical repertoire, available to Perse pupils.

Our comprehensive programme extends to smaller group tuition, including string/woodwind/brass chamber groups, guitar ensembles, percussion ensembles, jazz bands, rock/pop groups and a music technology society.

Pupils are actively encouraged to set up their own groups and bands, and many do. Music staff are very happy to support these initiatives.

Around 70 events take place in a typical Perse year, ranging from informal sign-up concerts to high-profile and large-scale instrumental and choral events. Highlights include the annual Perse Musician of the Year competition; termly orchestral and band concerts featuring solo concerto performances; a Charity Cabaret featuring jazz/pop repertoire; and projects in collaboration with local primary schools and care homes, which in recent years have included performances of Orff’s Carmina Burana with more than 250 musicians and selections from Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

While most concerts take place within the School, we have also forged strong links with external venues and annual performances have taken place in venues such as King’s and St John’s College Chapels, Saffron Hall, Westminster Abbey and Ely Cathedral.

We regularly invite a number of internationally-renowned professional musicians each year to give masterclasses and performances to our pupils. In recent years, the department has been pleased to invite names including Joanna MacGregor CBE, Roderick Williams OBE, Joan Rodgers CBE, Joseph Middleton and Nicky Spence, The Doric String Quartet, members of the Academy of Ancient Music and The Swingles.

Drama activities are led by a number of experienced teachers (including a Director of Theatre, a Director of English and Drama, specialist Drama teachers, and a Graduate Assistant) who bring a variety of backgrounds and experiences – in the academic and professional spheres – to their roles. 

Nearly every student will come into contact with drama activities at some point in their school career. Whether this means ‘dipping in’ to the provision on offer, gaining a qualification, taking part in a production, or discovering the foundations of a vocation, Perse drama will have a significant impact on the lives of many students. 

We run several dance clubs, enabling the study of a range of styles, from contemporary to street jazz, and participate in the annual Bodywork Outreach dance show, with brings together the most talented dancers in the region.  

Other clubs available include Senior Film, Stage Combat, Improvisation and Drama Wellbeing. Some activities are run by Sixth Form students for their younger mentees. We offer opportunities for students to stage their own scripts, and students take part in the National Theatre’s mentored ‘New Views’ scheme (playwriting competition) on an annual basis.

Our Perse Production Company is home to the budding producers, lighting technicians and sound engineers of the future. Students learn about lighting, sound, set, props and stage management, and use high-end technical kit such as our state-of-the-art lighting desk. 

Students cover acting and technical aspects of theatre, including lighting, sound and effects. Pupils also receive an introduction to other skills of the theatre such as production, direction, stage management, costume and make-up, and masks. 

Professional theatre practitioners, speakers, performers and workshop specialists visit the School to provide after-school sessions on a broad range of performance styles. Past workshops led by specialists from Cambridge University and from the West End have included stage combat, gothic horror and commedia dell’arte.

A large number of students take part in debating and public speaking competitions, developing their spoken diction, persuasive skills and public speaking confidence. There are three in-house debating societies, and students have the opportunity to take part in external events run by – among others – the Cambridge Union, the Oxford Union Society, the English-Speaking Union, Rotary International and Debating Matters. Perse students regularly win local rounds and regional finals in the events (and sometime participate in national finals). 

Each year the Perse Players put on a production, with opportunities for all ages in every aspect of staging a performance. Classics and brave new dramas have been staged over recent years, including Billy Elliot, Chariots of Fire and The Addams Family. 

There are up to eleven drama productions during the course of each academic year, providing opportunities for students of all ages.  

There is also an annual whole-school House Drama competition, in which pupils take on the roles of directors, devisors and script-writers.