Creative RPO resound project in Jamaica
In the build-up to the RPO's Music Education & String Orchestra Tour to Jamaica this September, the first of its kind, our colleagues at the National Youth Orchestra of Jamaica (NYOJ), who are organising the trip, get in touch with the RPO Head of Education to ask a few questions about the way we work and what we’re excited about.
RPO resound is privileged to have been invited to design an integrated programme of music education activities to form the backbone of the tour, and are looking forward to delivering a varied programme of outreach and educational activities including; master classes, ensemble coaching, Q&A sessions, instrumental tuition, creative composition projects, chamber performances, open days, and interactive concerts.
Follow the link for more info on NYOJ:
What kind of preparation goes into creating your special projects for marginalised groups? The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has been running an established and diverse community and education programme since 1993, and over the past 20 years we have gained extensive experience designing programmes of creative outreach activities, which engage some of the most hard-to-reach and marginalised members of society, nationally and internationally.
Our fundamental approach is that each project must be designed with the participants’ needs in mind, so we work closely with our partners to make sure we eliminate the common barriers to involvement in quality music-making such as; fees, accessibility, timetabling, cultural and ethnic barriers, and misconceptions about musical content and relevance. There is also a need from the outset to plan a project which is based around the participant’s own musical framework, including their level of ability, tastes and genres. Our projects use these elements as the creative starting points for new compositions, drawing inspiration from the participants themselves. Through an open creative platform we bridge the gap between what the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra achieves as a symphony orchestra, and what the participant can achieve as a musician and performer in their own right. We have delivered successful programmes in almost every conceivable setting for marginalised members of society from prisons to hospices, and it’s a really valuable strand of our work.
While education or inspiration may be central themes are there any other common goals with your Resound projects? Our RPO resound creative projects always aim to culminate in a showcase outcome, to celebrate the participants’ achievements with the full support of our professional orchestral musicians. However, beyond this we believe our projects achieve much more than the immediate musical output and development of musical skills, and that these shared music-making experiences help participants achieve higher quality of life, raise their educational standards, have an impact on health and well-being, and develop self-confidence and happiness. Our programmes are so varied, but here are some interesting examples of projects which are designed to deliver more than just musical skills alone: • Primary schools music and literacy projects, which link closely to the curriculum to explore story-telling through a song-writing process, targeting essential literacy skills such as the use and understanding of alliteration, simile etc. • Specialist bereavement projects, set up as confidential and safe environments in which participants use creative music-making as a therapeutic tool for self-expression. • Projects for young offenders and prison inmates which focus on the rehabilitative benefits of group music-making with professional musicians, giving particular recognition to the transferable social and practical skills developed during structured, formal projects.
What impact do the Resound projects have on the RPO musicians and administrators? The community and education department is absolutely integral to the Orchestra’s activities, with all projects devised not only to underpin the main concerts and residencies, but to properly harness the full range of skills our professional musicians have to offer. For many of our members the outreach projects provide some of the most rewarding moments of their careers, and there is rarely a project where the creative team of RPO musicians and project managers come away without having learned something new about ourselves – participants constantly challenge our skills, our perspectives about music, and our emotions!
“How nice to know that we've had some sort of influence just from doing what we do which is to communicate via our instruments - but then, that's why we started to play in the first place possibly. As an only child it was immensely powerful for me to have another voice which didn't involve words, and to pass that ability on is a great achievement for me personally.” Leila Ward, RPO Cor Anglais Another RPO musician values “seeing how what we do really enriches the lives of people that perhaps haven’t come across the music that we play, and seeing how people that might not have been interested in classical music, suddenly express an interest.” Rosie Wainwright, RPO violinist
Is there anything unique that you are looking forward to in preparing the Jamaican workshops, especially those for the NYOJ students? We feel absolutely privileged to be able to devise an integrated programme of music education activities to underpin the Orchestra’s tour to Jamaica, and that NYOJ have been so receptive and open to our ideas offered so far. We’re looking forward to using the full range of skills that our musicians have to offer in community and education settings.
One of the things we know we will learn a lot from is collaborating with NYOJ tutors and administrators to explore and share methods of best practice in music education for pupils from socio-economically challenging backgrounds.
We are most looking forward to bringing our specialist RPO team of musicians, under the guidance of our excellent and established workshop leader James Redwood, to the NYOJ students to unite them regardless of experience, ability and age to compose something entirely new together. NYOJ’s vision and mission is absolutely in line with the beliefs of RPO resound; that music is a powerful mechanism for instigating social change, and through participation in something collectively and creatively, young people can be engaged, invigorated and inspired. Ensuring our programmes reach and include as broad a reach of society as possible, is a fundamental objective, and dissolving barriers to inclusion is always a step in the right direction.