Partnerships with Music Education Hubs

Arts Council England recently launched a short film about Music Education Hubs and the work they do to create music education programmes for children and young people.




Britten Sinfonia has been working closely with the Music Education Hubs in the east of England over the past few years and Mateja Kaluza (Creative Learning Co-ordinator) outlines some partnership highlights from the coming season; 

Our partnerships with the Music Hubs across the east of England are central to our Creative Learning programme in 2015-16 and strong relationships with Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Peterborough hubs have helped us to identify areas of need and to shape exciting, dynamic, meaningful and impactful engagement opportunities for schools, families and young talent.

2015-16 season highlights include:

Cambridgeshire:
The Cambridgeshire Music Partership has been an unflagging development partner and funder of Link Ensemble, Britten Sinfonia’s pioneering integration project for young musicians with special educational needs  and their non-disabled, GCSE classmates at Comberton Village College. The highly successful pilot year across both the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons will culminate in a public performance at Saffron Hall, 6.15pm on Saturday 21 November in which the ensemble will demonstrate the compositional techniques they have developed over a series of intensive courses and premier their resulting works.


Norfolk:
Norfolk Music Hub’s commitment to whole-class instrumental learning is supported by Britten Sinfonia in an annual wider opportunity Celebration Day. Having undertaken a year of Wider Opportunities whole class learning, Key Stage 2 children are inspired by the orchestra in a massed ensemble workshop and performance engaging over 300 children on a range of instruments for an immersive playing experience.Read all about the 2014-15 celebration day here

Creative Learning at Lunch workshops allow students to explore new music with Britten Sinfonia's musicians and a workshop leader, and to attend Britten Sinfonia’s At Lunch concert series. Working closely with Norfolk Music hub to identify schools which will most benefit from this opportunity, workshops are tailored to schools needs and are suitable for Key Stage 3 and 4 or GCSE group.


Peterborough:
Working closely with Peterborough Music Partnership, the 2015-16 season will see Britten Sinfonia run a major Key Stage 3 Ensemble project involving 4 secondary schools, 120 participants and live-streamed performances to 1000 primary school children. This project is closely tied to Britten Sinfonia's mainstage programme with artistic roots in Strauss’ Metamorphosen (performed in Cambridge on 27 April 2016, Norwich on 29 April 2016 and in London’s Milton Court on 1 May 2016) encouraging the young musicians to explore cultural context and the compositional concept of many individual parts (and performers) working together to create a single work. 

As in both Norwich adn Cambridge we are also committed to supporting Peterborough Hub in providing excellent music education opportunities for young instrumentalists who then have the opportunity take part in a  mass ensemble playing alongside our musicians as part of an annual series  Let’s Play workshops.

Our commitment to working with young musicians with special educational needs or disabilities also reaches to Peterborough where in 2015-16 the hub will support our work with Phoenix Special School.


With such an exciting season ahead, in the Creative Learning team we arelooking forward to further developing the invaluable relationships with the music hubs sharing best practice and professional expertise to help young people discover, explore and celebrate music.

To find out more about our Creative Learning programme click here

Fifteen hundred new audience members? Lucky us!

The Cambridgeshire Key Stage 1 tour funded by Cambridgeshire Music Hub and Esmee Fairbairn Foundation visited 9 schools between Monday 23 and Friday 27 March 2015. Each school hosted a 1 hour concert as part of Live Music Week, presented by workshop leader Jessie Maryon Davies and featuring five Britten Sinfonia musicians. 

***

Pianist Dinis Sousa sounds a little worried on the phone. He apologises that he can’t talk for long because he’s in the middle of teaching but he’d like to just run a few things by us.

“So, we’re doing nine concerts in five days?”

“Yes.”

“With three concerts in one day on the Wednesday?”

“Yep.”

“Fifteen hundred children in total?”

“Mmm hmmm.”

“Oh right.” 

There’s a short pause.

“Are we really playing Adès, Bartok and Debussy?”

“Yup.”

A longer pause.

“Cool! See you on Monday!”

***

It is grins all round on Monday morning when five exceptional musicians come together to rehearse Neoma and the Night Time, the concert they will tour with workshop leader Jessie Maryon Davies through Cambridgeshire’s primary schools. The tour will give over 1500 primary school children in nine schools (including two special schools) the opportunity to experience world class performance and explore great music in the kind of programme for which Britten Sinfonia is renowned. Today’s rehearsal venue may be adorned with a giant banana chart encouraging five to seven year-olds to eat their five-a-day, but the atmosphere is all professionalism with such challenging repertoire on the musical menu.  

Violinist Ruth Ehrlich suggests they begin with Bartók’s Contrasts. The fast, humorous Hungarian folk rhythms (originally commissioned by Jazz clarinettist Benny Goodman) will represent a mischievous rooster in the concert’s story. Clarinet player Kimon Parry laughs remembering “The first time I looked at this piece with friends at Music College in London we got as far as this third movement and decided it was too hard! We ended up in the pub instead.”

When the moment arrives to play the leaping, fast patterns tossed between clarinet, violin and piano during the performance that afternoon, one hundred and seventy pairs of small eyes widen. The excitement is infectious and a new, technical difficulty of playing the piece presents itself: trying to play the clarinet while smiling!

Bartók’s boisterous energy and colour, also evident in two duets performed by Ruth and cellist Caroline Dearnley, sits beautifully in contrast to Debussy’s Syrinx for solo flute which also features, representing the day-dreaming of heroine Neoma.

“It’s interesting” notes flautist David Cuthbert, “here you have one of the great cornerstones of the flute repertoire and you’re used to performing it in the hushed, semi-dark of a formal recital. This week I’ll be walking right in among the audience while I play to bring them as close as possible to the music. Their reactions will colour the performance, enhancing the wide range of tones, colours and textures. It really brings it to life.”

The power of the music and the young people’s reactions and engagement with the performances is no more pronounced than at the performances in special schools. At a key moment, children are invited up to conduct the ensemble with a simple series of hand gestures. Carolina is ten and has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Her face lights up as the music swells when she stretches her arms out as wide as she can and then suddenly drops to a whisper as she brings her palms in close. She dances on the spot and her delight is mirrored on the faces of the musicians. “It is extraordinary. These children never have the chance to be in charge of anything in their lives and now, in this moment, they do” explains a teacher. “It’s very emotional.”

As the story ends, the magic of the performance hangs in the air and children file out under the gentle wash of Debussy’s Clair de Lune. They have found their voices in song, been inspired to lead music themselves and their imaginations have taken flight on backs of the great classical composers.  

It is Friday, there is just one more school on the tour schedule and there is a real glow in the Creative Learning office at Britten Sinfonia. We have the good fortune to work not only with some of the best musicians in the UK but we are reminded, not for the first time, that they are also versatile and inspirational torch bearers for a bright future for classical music.  

Jen House, Creative Learning Director

You can find out more about our Creative Learning department and the other work they do on our website.

Ensemble coaching at Impington Village College

Martyn Grisdale, Music Teacher at Impington Village College, approached Britten Sinfonia’s Creative Learning  team to discuss support and development for the school orchestra from Britten Sinfonia's professional musicians. His aim was to continue the positive development of the group and to improve the orchestras overall ability in time for the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the school, in September 2014.

The group of students, all instrumentalists in the school orchestra, all took part in a Creative Learning at Lunch workshop and a week later attended an At Lunch concert performed by Britten Sinfonia at West Road Concert Hall.

In addition, students took part in two days of workshops focusing on ensemble skills. In line with Britten Sinfonia’s ethos as a chamber orchestra the aim was to encourage each of the young musicians to take musical responsibility for their performance and to raise the collective aspirations and expectations of the orchestra.

At the end of the project, Impington Village College gave a successful performance at West Road Concert Hall at the end of Live Music Week with the Cambridgeshire Music Education Hub. They also made it through to the final of regional festival of the Music for Youth competition in Bedford.

The workshops were led by practitioner Laetitia Stott and Britten Sinfonia Musicians: Joy Farrall, Sarah O’Flynn, Nicola Goldscheider, Caroline Dearnley and Joy Hawley.

Martyn Grisdale (Music Teacher, Impington Village College) reports;
"The Impington Village College Orchestra was established in September. It has grown in size and popularity since then and now boasts over 30 players, including a 16-piece string section. The Orchestra is truly inclusive with students of all abilities and ages ranging from years 7 – 13.

During last term, the Orchestra worked intensely with members of Britten Sinfonia who led sectional and full orchestra rehearsals, master-classes and workshops to further improve the standard of the group. The Orchestra developed individual and sectional playing, rehearsing and performing without a conductor, how to phrase melodic lines and rehearsal etiquette. This first-rate coaching and mentoring proved invaluable and after successfully performing at the regional festival of the Music for Youth competition in Bedford, the IVC Orchestra was one of only five school orchestras from over 40 regional festivals to be invited to perform at the Music for Youth’s national festival in Birmingham in July.

The Orchestra continues to use the techniques suggested and introduced by Britten Sinfonia’s musicians and continues to develop as an ensemble as a result of this. They are currently rehearsing hard and look forward to representing the college at a national level."

Places for Creative Learning at Lunch 5 workshops and tickets are now available to secondary schools – for more information please contact Mateja Kaluza, Creative Learning Assistant at learning@brittensinfonia.com



For more information on Britten Sinfonia's Creative learning work click here