Tatty Theo
As Handel News readers may remember, in the January 2015 issue (No.62) I wrote about The Brook Street Band’s commitment to its education programme, bringing live music and that of Handel (in particular) into schools and educational settings. The National Plan for Music Education states that ‘great music education is a partnership between classroom teachers, specialist teachers, professional performers and a host of other organisations’. Over the past few years, The Brook Street Band has considerably expanded its education programme, working with increasing numbers of children at primary and secondary level, in schools and for music hubs.
The Band feels hugely privileged to be able to share its passion for baroque music with young people. Aside from its concert performances and CD recordings, its education programme has formed a large and growing part of the Band’s work, all the more compelling and more urgently needed since arts provision often falls by the wayside in many schools’ curricula. Increasingly, studies correctly identity the need for music-making in our lives, giving young people a set of skills for life, based not just on musical ability, but also friendship, communication, commitment, working as a team and problem-solving, amongst other things. Handel’s music and life story provides the perfect vehicle to inspire a younger generation, bridging the gap between the 18th and 21st centuries. The many parallels between Handel’s time and modern life are brought vividly to life by the Band’s passion for sharing stories and insights about Handel and his music. Handel is such a colourful character: the huge variety in the types of music he composed – music for domestic settings, opera houses, Royalty, church and state occasions – ensure that it has universal appeal.
The Brook Street Band’s work in 2019 builds on its delivery of education projects over the past seven years, but especially its 2017 education programme, which saw a huge leap in the numbers of students the Band was able to reach, particularly through its inaugural ‘love: Handel’ festival and associated education projects in Norwich. The Band continues this important and highly rewarding work this autumn, again linked to its festival (to be held in Norwich on 4-6 October 2019), bringing live performances of 18th-century music on period instruments into Norfolk and Norwich schools, and reaching up to 2,700 students with whole-school assemblies, workshops, and specialised work with string and woodwind players in the county. The Band has secured funding from various sources (including Arts Council England, The Atkin Foundation, The Charles Peel Charitable Trust, The Chivers Trust, Garfield Weston Foundation, The John Jarrold Trust and The RK Charitable Trust Ltd) to work in nine primary and secondary schools in the autumn term, providing some of these with several visits, working at greater depth to produce concerts for students’ peers and their parents and carers.
This is linked to work the Band has been delivering for Cambridgeshire Music as part of the #Roots project: a multi-partnered project, taking place over several years in conjunction with Cambridge Early Music, Cambridge University, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridgeshire Music and VOCES8. The Band is delivering the instrumental strand of the project, working with young people across Cambridgeshire to form a county-wide baroque orchestra, complete with access to baroque bows, and specialist tuition from members of The Brook Street Band. The founding members of the #Roots baroque orchestra will join the Band on-stage for one of the concerts in the ‘love: Handel’ festival, firmly placing the Band’s work with young people, and its commitment to providing them with access to high-quality baroque music, centre-stage.
As part of the festival, the Band is also working in partnership with Haringey Young Musicians in London, running a three-day ‘Handel in Haringey’ event on 21-23 October 2019. Here, talented young string and woodwind players across the borough will take part in masterclasses, chamber music and orchestra sessions, baroque dance sessions and generally time-travelling back to 1730s London. There will be plenty of opportunities for the young musicians to perform, as well as a professional concert given by The Brook Street Band itself.
So we look forward to working with a new generation of young people this autumn in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and London, inspiring them with our passion for Handel, and starting them on their own journeys to loving this music. For more information on the Band’s education work and its concert programme, please visit www.brookstreetband.co.uk