The London Medical Orchestra have had the very great pleasure of working with Martin Humphries under the ‘Adopt a Composer’ project, run by Making Music and supported by the PRS for Music Foundation.
The scheme pairs up a composer with an amateur music group who then work together to produce a new work to be performed by the group.
Do you worry about the financial health of your music group? You are not alone if you do - it is the single biggest challenge our groups face. Nearly all groups who don’t renew their membership with us don’t renew because they have disbanded, and that usually comes down to money.
All you want to do every Wednesday is turn up and have a good old sing or play through some nice music, and then go home and forget about it for another week.
Occasionally, you accept, a concert is quite a nice thing to work towards, as long as you will be able to shine and therefore feel confident enough to invite family and friends to come along and pay £10.
Voices Now’s survey of singing groups in the UK is well under way and has gained a lot of traction, from choir organisations to academic researchers. Over 2,500 choirs have answered the survey so far, but we know we are only scratching the surface!
Get Creative Weekend returns bigger and better for 2017 with even more people across Britain set to take part in three days of good old fashioned 'have a go' creativity. Whether it's paper sculpting, pot-throwing, cross-stitching, harmony singing, joke-telling or robot-building, from Friday 7 to Sunday 9 April 2017 there will be an event near you to help you unleash your inner Adele, Banksy, Monet or Rankin.
Opening the score of a new commission for the first time is rather like opening a surprise gift from a distant relation. You don’t know much about the person offering the gift other than the things you have heard from other family members, and perhaps hearing about the sorts of presents they have given your other relatives; they don’t know a huge amount about you, the receiver, other than the things they have heard; and you have absolutely no idea what to expect or - even - what you would like the present to be. You will certainly know if you don’t like it, however.
We're delighted to announce that Nottingham Performing Arts Library Service (NPALS)'s re-vamped, online sheet music hire service has bagged Nottingham City Council a Hearts for the Arts Award for Best Local Authority Arts Initiative.
Having met the GSA Choir at a few rehearsals (and social occasions), it was time to try out some ideas with them in a practical workshop.
We set aside an hour during the rehearsal on November 15th so that my mentor David Horne could be there but unfortunately Jamie, their conductor, was unable to make that evening. I’m pretty sure, however, that the choir will have filled him in on the details on his return!
Auditions for a new BBC One series will take place this February and the producers are asking for vocal groups of all genres to apply to take part.
The aim is to bring a contemporary music show to a BBC One Saturday night audience which celebrates a diverse range of music genres.
The producers will invite 30 of the nation’s most exciting vocal groups or choirs from a range of musical genres to take part in a 6 part series – 5 pre-recorded studio heats (with a live band accompanying the groups) and a live final.
Child licensing is increasingly an issue for music groups – what is happening to help with that situation, asks Barbara Eifler, Executive Director of Making Music.
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