On Friday the 16th of November, students, teachers and parents from all four ISM campuses took part in the 5th biennial Music Marathon in aid of HeartforMelisa.com and Diemas Dream.
The day began on most campuses with ‘The Big Sing’, where all students were brought together to sing, amongst other things, this year’s Music Marathon song, composed by Year 10 Student James Allen, with lyrics by Year Six student Varvara Muminova.
At Rosinka, children from Pre-Nursery to Year Six took part in a whole range of music and dance activities across the day. ‘Hold the Note’ competitions, a singing assembly, vegetable orchestra and learning songs in Russian are just a few examples of the activities that took place.
The ‘Hold the Note’ competition also included a very intense and fiercely competitive teacher challenge. Each teacher could choose any instrument (including voice) and try to hold a note for as long as possible. Mr Mehrabian was able to blow the trumpet for an incredible 29 seconds without taking a breath. Many of our students were able to hold a note for around 25-30 seconds, which is truly remarkable.
EYFS students also enjoyed the event and participated in a range of music and dance lessons. They also took part in a fun assembly, where they had to make music using a range of everyday objects.
Students followed a special timetable of music activities, including samba with the band Samba Real , contemporary dance, as well as our very own Vegetable Orchestra. It is amazing how many notes you can get out of a carrot!
As well as sponsorship, there were other fundraising activities taking place, including busking in the canteen and a charity hamper raffle with hampers kindly donated by students and parents from Krylatskaya Upper Campus. Some ISM students went above and beyond in collecting sponsorship money. Julia Krukova in 6B collected 75,000 rubles alone. Well done Julia!
The event ended with an outstanding finale concert, featuring ISM students and including this year’s second Music Marathon song composed and performed by Year 12 students Max Taptygin and Marina Ogawa.
The concert also included special guest performances from Alsou, Tatooin and Tony Watkins and the Smokebreakers. ISM is very grateful for the support these artists gave to our Music Marathon this year.
The highlight of the day was hearing our charity team, directed by Mr Christopher Ralph, announcing this year’s final total amounting of nearly 1.4Million Rubles. This is double the amount raised previously in Music Marathons and truly a fantastic total. We are very grateful to our students, parents, staff and the wider community for their support.
Most importantly, with funds divided 50/50 between our two charities, the money will be well spent, firstly helping us to raise the 1,100,000 Euros for Melisa’s new heart and also supporting both Dmitrii and Kirill through ‘Diemas Dream’.
By James Langford,
Head of Creative Arts Department
