Every Friday (or Saturday!) we round up some positive stories about music and music education to help you start your weekend with a smile. Here’s this week’s Good Music News – hope you enjoy it!
- Seven essential pieces of advice for young musicians
- MU’s “I am music” video celebrates the power of music to lift spirits, communities and the economy
- Winners of the British Composer Awards announced
- Stunning line rider video set to with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5
- Deadline approaching for Orchestras for All’s Modulo Programme
- The ISM publishes new report on the future of music education
- Pantomime time!
We loved Sir Simon Rattle’s “seven essential pieces of advice for young musicians,” which Rattle discussed in the latest BBC Young Musician podcast. His advice is also summarised in this excellent article on the BBC’s website.
The Musicians’ Union has launched a powerful video, “I am music,” which celebrates the power of music to lift spirits, communities and the economy and encourages music lovers to sign-up (free of charge) as supporters. The MU (Claire’s been a member for years) wants supporters to unite behind three common goals: “letting every child learn music, letting touring musicians travel and letting live music live.” Watch the video:
The scheme is free to sign-up to, and supporters receive regular campaign updates, ways to get involved, and music industry news. Find out more about what becoming a Supporter involves, and how to sign up.
The winners of the British Composer Awards 2018 were announced this week at a ceremony at the British Museum in London. They include two works using digital technologies to enable disabled musicians to take part in live performance, a jazz composition inspired by science fiction and a brass band piece exploring artificial intelligence.
The Awards celebrate “the art of composition and showcase the creative talent of contemporary composers and sound artists” and are presented by BASCA, The British Academy of Songwriters, Composers & Authors. A radio programme dedicated to the British Composer Awards will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday 9 December at 9.20pm.
Crispin Hunt, Chair at BASCA, said: “The passion, creativity and dedication to music demonstrated by this year’s winners is deeply inspiring and humbling. A record year for submissions, the new music landscape in Britain proves itself time and again to be more vibrant, dynamic and vivacious than ever, engaging with a diverse range of ideas and audiences. This is a hugely exciting time to be a creator or appreciator of new music.”
Read about all of the winners in the British Composer Awards.
If you’ve not yet seen the amazing work of art created by DoodleChaos – who spent over 3 months synchronizing a line rider track, with multiple riders, to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 , drawing everything by hand, check it out – it’s stunning:
There’s just a week left to sign up to Orchestras for All‘s Modulo Programme. The programme – for music teachers and community music leaders – supports you to establish or develop a small ensemble of between 4 – 10 young people: “The players can be of any instrument skill level or experience – whether tab-reading guitarists, open string players or keyboard players.”
More about The Modulo Programme.
This week The ISM released its report on the future of music education. Drawing on responses to surveys which ran over the summer (we participated), the report makes a series of recommendations for both music education in the classroom and any revised National Plan for Music Education. More about the report and its recommendations on The ISM website.
It’s Pantomime time! We’re deliriously excited about Peter Pan at the Sheffield Lyceum (oh yes we are, etc!) Pantos are great fun anyway and they also enable organisations such as Sheffield Theatres to put on a huge variety of home-grown and touring productions and a thriving programme of participatory events and activities all year around. Check out Peter Pan at the Sheffield Lyceum.
What next?
- Read earlier editions of Good Music News
- If there’s something you would like us to cover in Good Music News Friday, please email us.
- Here’s some good news for music teachers: our free 29 tips for a thriving music teaching business will give you things you can do immediately to boost your music teaching business. They’ll also make you smile.