We encourage every boy to explore, enjoy and excel at whatever co-curricular pursuits they find most interesting. Our boys are then given the necessary teaching, tools and facilities to do exactly that. Explore, enjoy and excel.
I joined Eton in 2023 with the goal to build Eton’s commercial music scene to be on a par with its long-standing, impressive culture of classical and jazz ensembles. At Eton there are multiple rock concerts every term spanning different sizes and settings. These include ‘Tiny Desk’ concerts in a library, Live Lounge sessions, EDM gigs (yes, Eton has raves!) and large rock concerts.
The Rock Room at the School has become an impressive rehearsal space which doubles as a venue for bands to try out their setlists and refine songs before they perform at high-profile concerts in Eton’s larger auditoriums.
The majority of boys who get involved don’t hold formal music awards and are inspired by their love of music.
Boys have also started to take on more challenging repertoire, with one band (Bootliquor) notably covering Led Zeppelin’s No Quarter and Pink Floyd’s Money in a recent gig. Eton rock band The Jades have also released music on Spotify and play gigs outside of Eton.
The commercial music scene attracts lots of boys who have become Music Scholars and Music Exhibitionists at Eton, but the majority of boys who get involved don’t hold formal music awards and are inspired by their love of music.
In F Block (Year 9), interested boys have a supervised weekly rehearsal session to train them in the art of organising rehearsals and working with their bandmates. They are then released in E and D Block (Years 10 and 11) to form their own bands, taking them through to their C and B Block (sixth form) years.
An initiative encouraging speaker events was developed this year, with boys reaching out to their favourite artists and inviting them in to speak. We have been visited by a fascinating range of speakers, from Grammy-winning producers and rising stars of the London grime scene, to X-Factor winners, Andrew Lloyd Webber and James Blunt. It is only through the passion and dedication of boys who arrange these events (and receive numerous declines in the process) that such prestigious speakers visit us.
Naturally, their sage advice and enjoyable anecdotes do even more to fuel the enthusiasm of all the young musicians listening, whether Eton boys or pupils from our partner schools.
