After a year on the Adopt a Composer scheme alongside the composer Gaynor Barradell, Sarah Freshwater - trombone player for the Edinburgh Concert Band - talks rhythm tricks and recording for BBC. Followed by a last word from MD, Sarah Cunningham.
Fish and chips, fish and chips and some lemonade, we’ll have some mushy peas now…
Having been paired with Ben See on the Adopt a Composer scheme, we caught up with a couple of players from the Main Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra to find out what they've been up to.
Cellist, Toby:
As part of the Adopt a Composer scheme, Ben See firstly sent out a questionnaire to each orchestral section asking about what kind of music we enjoy playing the most as well as what we thought Stoneleigh's strengths were.
I have just completed the Certificate: The Practice of Music Making, a one-year programme developed by Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (Making Music Corporate Member), in partnership with the Open University.
Many Making Music member groups are currently exempt by law from paying a data protection fee as they process personal data for not-for-profit purposes.
However, the government has launched a consultation on exemptions from these data protection fees. The Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) is handling the consultation and has invited respondents to tell them which exemptions they consider are still appropriate and should be kept, and which exemptions are no longer appropriate and should either be changed or removed - and the reasons why.
In part II of Ben See's blog he gives us an insight into the thoughts and processes of composing for the main orchestra (MO) of Stoneleigh Youth Orchestras (SYO).
Ben See gives us an insight into the thoughts and processes of composing for two Stoneleigh Youth Orchestras (SYO). In the first of a two-part blog, he sets out to find the words for one of the compositions and discovers a shared love of biscuits and desire to be heard.
It’s estimated that the number of choirs in the UK alone has risen to over 40,000 in recent years. A large proportion of those have been formed purely to share the enjoyment of singing – and perhaps performing – music within a local community, workplace or other environment.
One of the challenges faced by the growing number of choirs is finding a good source of quality music to work with which is both accessible and enjoyable for everyone to sing.
The Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra are working alongside conductor Ben See as part of Adopt a Composer. In this blog one of the orchestra's conductors, Dan Shilladay, tries in vain to find out how the piece is coming along, but the composer keeps up a vanishing act.
I’m the conductor of Stoneleigh Youth Training Orchestra, but as most of our composer’s visits have been to sectional rehearsals, I’ve not yet seen or heard much of Ben’s new piece, or the sessions that have been its crucible.
Make Music Day UK took place on Thursday 21 June and generated over 500 free public music performances from the Isle of Wight to the Isle of Lewis, in every kind of location including train stations, shopping centres, pubs, libraries, music shops, hospitals, schools, park and dales. The UK joined over 120 countries worldwide for this free celebration of music.
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