🎶BSM Music students take centre stage, BSM is Drawn Together: A Celebration of Art and Nature, and upcoming events in Drama
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Music
🎶BSM Music Students Take Centre Stage
It’s been an exciting month for Music at The British School Manila, with our talented students achieving remarkable success across local and international stages. From live band performances to national competitions and orchestral collaborations, our BSM musicians continue to make us proud.
🥁 Four Squared in the FOBISIA Battle of the Bands Live Finals
We’re thrilled to announce that Four Squared has been selected to represent The British School Manila at the FOBISIA Battle of the Bands 2026 Live Finals in Bangkok this coming January!
This year’s preliminary round saw 97 bands from 45 FOBISIA schools take part, making the competition fiercer than ever. Following internal auditions and the video submissions, Four Squared earned its place among the Upper Secondary (KS4-5) finalists.
Congratulations to Maegan, Simone, Shuntaro, Sungwon, Cara, and Kevin (Year 11), and Alexis and Maia (Year 12) on this incredible achievement, and to all our BSM bands who took part in this year’s auditions.
Visual Arts
BSM is Drawn Together: A Celebration of Art and Nature
The Big Draw Festival 2025 is coming to the British School Manila from Monday-Friday, 03-07 November2025! The Big Draw is the world’s largest celebration of drawing. This year’s global theme, Drawn Together, invites us to explore the many ways drawing connects people across generations, cultures, and communities, and how it connects us back to our environment.
At BSM, we have interpreted this through the lens of connecting with nature, asking: How do we connect with each other and our world? As urban living often distances us from the natural world, this year’s Big Draw will focus on botanical forms, growth, and interconnection with nature. Students, staff, community members, and our visiting artists will collaborate in a week-long series of events that transform our Creative Arts Centre into a space of shared creativity and reconnection.
Events and Activities
Philippine Wildlife Triptych Collaboration Help Artist-in-Residence, Lilianna Manahan, complete her large-scale sculptural installation, the Philippine Wildlife Triptych, which celebrates Filipino craft and regional wildlife. Students will decorate individual santan flowers according to their British School house colour and attach them to the artwork, symbolising unity in an act of Bayanihan.
Exquisite Landscape Participate in this large-scale collaborative drawing challenge, set up like the classic Exquisite Corpse game. Each group will contribute to a continuous landscape drawing, illustrating interconnectedness.
Studio Botanica: Slow down and practice mindfulness through observational drawing of natural forms, like plants and flowers. Experiment with techniques such as continuous line drawing.
The Invisible Garden: Look at nature in a whole new way! Use microscopes and botanical cellular plates to observe the abstract patterns of life at a microscopic level and translate these stunning cellular structures into your own drawings.
The Big Draw Festival and the theme Drawn Together, remind us that drawing is a universal language that brings people together.
This is for anyone who loves to draw, as well as those who think they can't!
We invite you to join the collaboration, play, and reconnect with nature in the CAC next week, Monday-Friday, 03-07 November, during school lunchtimes. We can’t wait to see you there!
Drama
Junior FOBISIA Drama Festival – Registration Open
From Monday-Thursday, 9-12 March 2026, Taipei European School will proudly host Leaping into Motion, a vibrant four‑day festival for 11 to 14‑year-olds from FOBISIA schools. Students will explore the art of visual storytelling through movement and performance, collaborating across schools to develop and share original work. This festival offers a rich opportunity to ignite creativity, deepen connections, and celebrate the joy of ensemble theatre-making within our FOBISIA community.
Information has been released to Key Stage 3 students via Google Classroom, and families are encouraged to check recent school communications for registration details.
Senior Production – Something Rotten! Jr.
Our talented cast of 28 students has been rehearsing tirelessly - six hours each week, including Saturdays - for the upcoming Senior School production of Something Rotten! Jr. Set in the Renaissance, the show follows brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom as they try to outshine Shakespeare by writing the world’s first musical. Packed with wit, big dance numbers, and clever humour, it promises to be a truly joyful celebration of creativity and theatre.
Tickets go on sale after the half-term break.
It’s another fantastic start to the year for BSM Drama, with creativity, collaboration, and performance thriving across all year levels - and much more still to come!
RELATED LINKS
- Creative Arts Centre
- Drama
- Visual Art