Taking the Reins…what partnerships bring to Musical Inclusion
At Oxfordshire Music Education Partnership we’ve developed a range of inclusion projects run by several different organisations within the hub: Oxfordshire County Music Service, Readipop, Pegasus Theatre, OYAP Trust and others, and we’ve learned a lot about the benefits to be gained from several different organisations working together.
Over the past year, we've run 4 gigs at Pegasus Theatre to bring together performances from these different MINC projects. We’ve called the shows Reins - Youth Music Showcase and they began as a way of providing a performance opportunity for the rock band from our iROx MINC project. This is a group of young people from The Oxford Academy who at the time were just starting to learn about playing music together. At the first show, in January 2013, we paired the band with more experienced young artists from mainstream projects, to build links and to give the iROx band the chance to learn from more experienced peers. At the subsequent shows in June and November 2013 and February 2014, we added acts from other MINC projects, as they’ve got to the stage where they’re confident enough and musically proficient enough to perform live.
The pupils from these different projects have learned how a rock gig works: soundchecking, lighting, hanging out in the green room, standing in the wings listening with interest and enthusiasm to the performances of other artists. They’ve performed with increasing assurance on stage in front of a substantial audience - most of the gigs have sold out. Through the confidence they have gained from these gigs and from their developing musicianship, they've been able to perform and compose with increasing maturity, and their self-esteem, confidence, and ability to interact socially, has been greatly improved. Some pupils have gone on to study music at college, some formed a band that won their school’s ‘Got Talent’ competition, some have gained the confidence to start working as mentors to other pupils.
We’ve found that one of the strongest factors leading this progression has been the chance for the staff and pupils from these different organisations to work together. Pupils from different projects have formed bands as a result of meeting at the Reins nights. Pupils from iROx and Pegasus Theatre have come along to Oxford Rockschool to develop their playing further. The organisations have worked with each other to support their MINC projects: for example, staff from OCMS ran starter sessions to help OYAP launch Bicester Rockschool, which was then staffed by a Readipop teacher and a teacher who also works on iROx for OCMS. Readipop staff have provided CPD for OCMS staff on genre crossover work, where they have particular expertise.
These links between the different organisations also mean we can offer progression routes for pupils - for example, pupils from iROx and Bicester Rockschool can (and do) come along to OCMS Rockschool, which is part of our mainstream rock and pop provision, where the bands work more independently and are expected to work on original material most of the time. Players from our youth orchestras have worked to produce mixed-genre pieces with young producers using DAW software, under the guidance of staff from OCMS and Readipop. Members of iROx are currently rehearsing for the world premiere of a piece which will see them perform alongside over 100 primary school musicians and the Oxfordshire County Youth Orchestra in Birmingham Symphony Hall.
This kind of collaboration increases the interaction between MINC work and the mainstream work of the hub, and means the inclusion work of the hub has been a proper example of partnership working, where the different organisations work together to build capacity throughout the region.