Performing Arts
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Winner of the ‘Best of the Best’
category for Creative Arts 2025
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The Week Independent Schools Guide 2025
Music
Whether you’re more SIX the musical or Beethoven’s Sixth. Putney’s music department offers an adventure into music whether you wish to play, perform, conduct or compose.
Almost half the school sings in one of our many choirs and there are orchestras, chamber and jazz ensembles, rock bands and many music and songwriting clubs to try. Our annual Music Festival alone attracts 450 entries.
For those wishing to play an instrument there is a huge range of tuition on offer, everything from Accordion, Organ and Harp to Singing and Guitar. Well over half of all pupils learn at least one instrument with many playing two or more.
State-of-the-art facilities include acoustically engineered practice rooms, spacious performance areas, a recording studio and a composition room equipped with the latest tech.
Many study at Saturday conservatoires and join regional and national ensembles and leavers regularly go on to Music at Oxbridge and the Royal Academy of Music.
“The dulcet tones of a school string quartet floated up the four-storey atrium of the Athena Centre on the opening night – a building worthy of a top orchestra let alone a London day school.”
The Good Schools Guide
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It’s rare that a school fosters such individual creative merit.
Drama
Performance is an integral part of life at Putney and there are opportunities to tread the boards in a busy calendar of shows throughout the year. Behind the scenes there are LAMDA classes and training in the technical aspects of theatre production using the state-of-the-art equipment and a professional sound and lighting booth.
Workshops and stage-craft masterclasses are led by stars of stage and screen and numerous theatre trips provide inspiration for our students’ own critically acclaimed performances at the Edinburgh Fringe and the Shakespeare Schools Festival.
Poetry
Our many budding poets perform their own work in our annual Poetry Festival.
Dance
Our annual Dance Show showcases ballet, contemporary, street dance and jazz.