by Author Lottie Brook

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National Centre for Early Music and York Music Hub celebrate the BBC Ten Pieces

The National Centre for Early Music recently hosted an exciting York Music Hub meeting to introduce the BBC Ten Pieces Project and spark off creative discussion about how the project can be taken forward with local young people.

The National Centre for Early Music recently hosted an exciting York Music Hub meeting to introduce the BBC Ten Pieces Project and spark off creative discussion about how the project can be taken forward with local young people. Representatives from the National Centre for Early Music, York Arts Education, Arts Council Bridge Organisation Cape UK, local universities and student-led education groups, other music and arts education organisations, and local schools (including a pupil representative) gathered together in the NCEM’s inspiring converted medieval church performance space to receive a warm welcome from NCEM Director, Dr Delma Tomlin, and then promptly launched into a body percussion warm-up, led by York Music Hub’s Tim Brooks and inspired by Anna Meredith’s Connect It!

With everyone in the creative mood, York Music Hub went on to describe the support package they are able to offer to local schools, in order to make exploring the Ten Pieces project with pupils a straightforward, enjoyable and inspiring experience.  A summary of the York Music Hub support package can be found here: http://yorkmusichub.org.uk/index.php/home/2-uncategorised/42-bbc-ten-pieces.

Then the gathered parties were asked to think about how they might each take the Ten Pieces project forward – a wonderfully stimulating debate, with pens and post-it notes flying! Here are just some of the ideas that blossomed during this discussion:

  • Get creative responses to the Ten Pieces through dance/art/drama, as a way to engage non-music-specialists in encouraging young people to appreciate and respond to music;
  • Use one of the Ten Pieces each week as a theme for assemblies;
  • Use the beginner level arrangements of the Ten Pieces and work on these with school bands/orchestras or joining school orchestras with more advanced players and ensembles in the city;
  • Invite children to imagine and write their own stories in response to hearing the Ten Pieces;
  • Share responses across different schools and with the wider community;
  • Instrumental and composition workshops from university music students for primary school pupils, based around the Ten Pieces;
  • Use the Ten Pieces lesson plans and resources from the BBC Music website
  • Enable children to access live performances of the Ten Pieces;
  • A large music open day at local universities, where children can experience a range of musical activities in a range of spaces, linked to the Ten Pieces;
  • Link Ten Pieces activities to York Live Arts Week;
  • High-quality showcasing platforms for pupils’ creative responses at the National Centre for Early Music, the Late Music Festival and the York Music Hub Festival.

The National Centre for Early Music’s own plans to celebrate the Ten Pieces will kick off on Wednesday 4th February 2015 with an Inspiration Day, which will see over 60 young people from local primary schools come to the NCEM for a morning packed with creative learning activities, centred around the Ten Pieces. The Inspiration Day will start with a live performance of John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine from the York St John University Concert Band, who will also give the children insights into what it is like to play in a musical ensemble and their own responses to John Adams’ music. Pupils will then be treated to a full screening of the Ten Pieces film, followed by an active body percussion workshop, using Connect It as an inspiration, led by percussionist and music leader Donna Smith. This Inspiration Day provides children with a creative impetus that they can carry forward into work with their class teachers and later share back with their peers and community, as part of York’s collaborative celebration of the Ten Pieces project.