TWO large musical installations were unveiled at Marlwood School last week.

Over 70 musical instruments, painted by students to resemble exotic fish, were installed in the two main music rooms at the Alveston school.

Mr Ben Humphries, head of music, explained: “We combined instruments that we had that were beyond repair with similar ones donated by parents and spent three days with over 110 students exploring designs and painting them.

"We then suspended them with fishing lines and they are both lit with small projectors that provide an underwater pattern of moving blue light.”

It has been a busy time for the music team as they have a new wind ensemble, a mixed choir, samba band, ukulele band and a whole school production of Bugsy Malone accompanied by the senior orchestra.

The department is also seeing an encouraging growth in peripatetic music lessons. They also enabled students to fill every part of the school with music on a recent Open Evening.

Mr Humphries; “It is really busy at present but the respect and appetite for music-making is so strong here that it demands to be met with similar levels of creativity and effort.”