The Education Diaries 10 June 2024

Our Education team were on the road last week to the National Centre for Early Music in York as part of our ongoing residency to bring concerts to the local community. Here’s what went down last week!

Q: How many concerts can the OAE do in 2 ½ days?
A: Well last week between Sunday afternoon and Tuesday afternoon in York we did 6!

Q: How many people heard the OAE over these six concerts at the gorgeous National Centre for Early Music (NCEM) in York?
A: 130 for our TOTS concert, 600 for our KS2 concerts and 120 for The Night Shift

Q: Success?
A: Absolutely!

Teatime TOTS concert: King of the Sea for local families

A beautiful tale by Hazel Gould about Poseidon, the King of the Sea who is guarding a chest full of treasure. He believes this treasure is extremely valuable until our explorer Adam, with the help of our young audience, tell him it is rubbish that the people of the land have thrown into the sea. We turn the rubbish into instruments and recycle his treasure and he returns to the land to tell the land people to stop littering. The OAE interspersed music by Boyce with arias, beautifully sung by Tim Dickinson and with the addition of a few well known rhymes our audience was treated to a lovely afternoon of music.

"Brilliant! Great Fun and I will definitely come back!"

Parent

"It was lovely and nice"

Eva aged 4

"A lovely way to introduce kids to this genre of music!"

Parent

Life of the Sea KS2 concerts

Another fabulous tale by Hazel for KS2 pupils who were treated to a 70’s chat show presented by Adam Courting who is interviewing a famous explorer Tim Dickinson as he tells tales of his adventures in the high seas. After teacher training and a workshop in school, pupils joined the OAE to hear some of Handel’s famous Water Music and then took part in the show by singing a sea shanty, performing a song about the environment and adding body percussion, strings and recorders to an instrumental storm piece.

The Night Shift

Led by Margaret Faultless, an audience of over 100 joined us for Bach by Arrangement for an evening of Bach but not on the instruments it was originally written for.

"A delightful way to spend a Monday evening – and a pleasure to see so many young people in the audience."

Audience member

"An unexpected beautiful evening. I am helped to appreciate music when musicians respect the music and their fellow musicians."

Audience member