The Year 6 group at Oswald Road primary is excited. “We’re doing flamenco,” volunteers Kate. “It’s all about pose and posture,” says Josh. “When Helen from the orchestra came in, we learned about rhythm, beats and pulse, and we had a go at reading some music,” adds Nathan.
Helen Peller is a bassoonist from Manchester’s Hall Orchestra, and she’s been visiting Oswald Road as part of a Greater Manchester music action zone project based on Manuel De Falla’s ballet The Three-Cornered Hat .
One hundred and sixty children from five primary schools will spend this term composing and rehearsing a new piece of music based on the Spanish composer’s original. With the help of dance and music professionals, who guide the composition and rehearsal by leading school workshops for children and Inset days for teachers, the children will perform the piece in Manchester’s new state-of-the-art concert venue, the Bridgewater Hall, on March 7. Many of them will never have been there before.
There will be 20 music action zones (not to be confused with the Government’s soon-to-be-abolished education action zones) throughout England by April 2002, reaching more than a million children and young people who would otherwise have little or no opportunity to make music.
The National Youth Music Foundation is funded by the Arts Council of England national lottery fund, to the tune of pound;30 million in 1999 and a further pound;30 million last year. This money funds, among other projects, the youth music action zones. NYMF plans to establish two action zones in Wales and to investigate the need for similar projects in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
“A music action zone is a complex fabric of activity, ideally run by several organisations that wouldn’t normally be working together,” says David Sulkin, head of policy at the National Youth Music Foundation.
“Though our work is education-sensitive, it’s mostly about providing opportunities, expertise and signposting outside school, unlocking individual choices for music that young people want to explore themselves.”
The National Youth Music Foundation: 020 7902 1060
A longer version of thisnbsp;review appears in this week’s Friday magazinenbsp;
