By Shelby Brooks
Kooweerup Secondary College has held a musical farewell for retiring teacher and community stalwart Claudia Barker.
’Claudia Barker Through the Decades’ brought the current school band together with a reunion band consisting of past music students to celebrate Claudia’s 56 year long career.
Past parents, community members, colleagues and Claudia’s family were also part of the retirement party event held at the school on Sunday 5 June.
Claudia’s dedication to the school’s music program for almost six decades was honoured in speeches by former principal Geoff Pledge, current assistant principal Leonie McGinley, college council president Chris David, former assistant principal and long-time friend Margaret Nicolson and M-C and former assistant principal Peter Bottomley.
As heard in speeches, Claudia began her time at the school in 1965 during a teacher shortage.
Claudia’s husband Kenneth had started at the school two years earlier, so when they heard his wife was studying teaching, they begged her to join the staff.
Claudia’s experience as the musical director of the Pakenham Brass Band in the ’70s eventually led her into classroom music at the college.
She then took over the running of the school’s music festival event and directing the school musicals.
In 1982, Claudia started the school’s senior band program and has held twice weekly rehearsals before school ever since.
She went on to form the college marching band in 1998 and entered the ensemble into the Anzac Day march in Melbourne, starting an annual tradition.
In 2002, the Claudia Barker Performing Arts Centre was named in her honour, the same year she became a leading teacher.
Claudia has been passionate about creating unique opportunities for her students, organising trips into Melbourne to see professional theatre productions, getting the band on the bill for various gigs and even taking the band overseas.
Under her direction, the college senior band has performed around the world, including at St Margaret’s Westminster, The International School of Paris and Fromelles on the Western Front during the 2012 senior band trip and Chatsworth International School, Kranji War Cemetery and Our Tampines Hub in Singapore during the 2019 senior band trip.
Old photographs of the hundreds of performances Claudia conducted with the school band were hung around the venue on the day of the reunion.
Claudia regaled the attendees with her memories of her time at the school, including one particularly funny moment when conducting a performance.
“I thought someone would mention how I managed to lock myself in the photocopy room before a performance and the band started without me,“ Claudia said.
“When I said to John Eddy, ’how could you start without me?’, he said ’we thought you were going to make a grand entrance’.“
The school’s music program has been taken over by longtime teacher David Campbell who arranged the reunion band to perform selections from Pirates of the Caribbean, Miss Saigon, Nessun Dorma from Turandot and Gabriel’s Oboe, the latter of which was performed by Claudia’s son Daniel who travelled from Vietnam especially for the performance.
