Hertfordshire schoolchildren gain from double music lesson

2:53pm Thursday 18th March 2010

By Melanie Dakin

Screaming schoolkids isn’t ideally my lunchtime cup of tea but dropping in on the BBC Concert Orchestra (BCO) launch for MusicMix at its home from home, Watford Colosseum, on Tuesday, I was quickly drawn in by the enthusiasm of the packed to the rafters auditorium.

Organised in partnership with Orchestras Live, MusicMix is a specially designed schools tour for students aged 11 to 14, including a high level of participation by young people.

Up on stage, BBC Radio One’s Nihal Arthanayake was asking the assembled young people to “make some noise”, which they promptly did. He then handed over to Australian conductor Matthew Coorey who talked through the pieces they had just listened to, which included Mars from Holst’s Planets Suite and Prokofiev’s Montagues and Capulets (the theme for The Apprentice) and Prokofiev’s Snow Time from Concerto for Turntable & Orchestra performed by DJ Switch, the reigning world DMC champion.

Among the groups of young musicians asked to perform alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra were Herts County Youth Choir, who performed the world premier of a stunning new string arrangement of Radiohead’s Harry Patch (In Memory Of) by the band’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood, the BBC Concert Orchestra’s new composer-in-residence.

Ashcroft High School from Luton then performed a very lively rendition of Soul Limbo (used as the BBC cricket theme) alongside the orchestra’s principal percussionist Alasdair Malloy, who has recorded with the likes of the Spice Girls, Pulp and Elton John.

“It was originally written for orchestra by Booker T on the Hammond organ,” Alasdair tells the crowd. “It’s an interesting and unusual piece which has the coolest percussion parts ever.” Alasdair proceeds to sway before the band while the audience hand clap to the rhythm.

I can’t stay for the whole session, which lasts 75-minutes, but I have time to hear the audience sing a new song from the project, Working Together, which their teachers had helped to prepare through training sessions and learning resources provided in school.

Another group will be enjoying the afternoon session before the musicians and presenters go on to entertain ten- to 14-year-olds in Norfolk and Lincolnshire.

BCO’s learning manager, Patrick Bailey tells me MusicMix will enable a total of 7,000 young people to experience music close hand and 300 schoolchildren will be performing on stage over the course of a week.

“There are many aims for the project,” says Patrick. “We want to bring the orchestra out to Key Stage 3 audiences so they can see, hear, and experience close up the enormous variety of music we do. We’re supporting the national curriculum with young people on stage performing with a professional conductor in a fantastic setting. We’re also showing off what an orchestra can do – that it does all these things and doesn’t just play old music but a mix of pop, DJs and TV theme tunes.

“It’s all done to celebrate the life of the BBC Concert Orchestra which has the widest remit that encompasses Elbow, Shirley Bassey, Mozart and Gilbert & Sullivan – we have so many different styles at our fingertips.”