Facing Class 3B
By ROBERT BEALE
Published in Classical Music Magazine, Sept.2010
THERE’S a display board over Alex Munro’s desk in the Manchester Camerata office, with a bit of customer feedback on it:
‘IT WAS EXITEING’ … ‘I THORT IT WAS VERY NOISY’ … ‘I WAS INTERESTED HOW MUSIC WAS MADE’ … ‘I LIKED THE IDEA OF MAKING UP A SONG’ …
It’s an indication of the success of the work that orchestral musicians do in schools these days. And, in this case, of a new training course set up to help them do it better.
The one-year North West Chamber Orchestras Training Programme, run in association with Manchester Metropolitan University, is just beginning the third term of its first session – and recruiting for the next, which starts in January 2011.
The course is a joint project by Manchester Camerata, the Northern Chamber Orchestra and Lancashire Sinfonietta, with support from the ABO, and there’s a good likelihood that the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic will be recommending it to players in the future.
Working in schools is a normal experience for freelance musicians these days. But, as project co-ordinator Alex Munro says, ‘Some who have no trouble playing for thousands of people still find facing 30 primary school children is quite scary.’
And there’s more to doing a good job educationally than just going in and playing. Alex again: ‘We started with what was coming back to us from our musicians. Players would be asked to go into a school and deliver, but they wouldn’t know what was already going on in the school curriculum – or they were drafted into a programme already designed and didn’t feel part of the whole process.
‘What this course aims to do is to enable them to devise their own programmes, and to do it within the teaching and learning criteria of the educational establishments they work with.’
Ideas began to take shape four years ago, when Charlotte Spencer, now Camerata head of development, was head of learning. ‘There was a lot of education work being done, but the players wanted to move things on,’ she says.
‘We knew we needed something in the form of professional development study, and since a lot of players are shared by our three orchestras, and we have good contacts at management level, too, we needed to pool resources.’
Manchester Metropolitan University was best placed to deliver the course, and those who complete it can now gain credits towards a master’s degree. Jonathan Savage, reader in education at MMU and co-ordinator of the instrumental teaching PGCE provided by the Royal Northern College of Music and the university, along with Charlotte Spencer, devised the main ingredients as:
- training in using new technology (particularly the software now available which means a teacher with a microphone, a PC and some speakers can deliver composition project in the classroom)
- strengthening delivery, particularly of cross-artform work
- incorporating children’s own ideas
- understanding the National Curriculum.
‘We’re not trying to turn our musicians into teachers – if they really want to do that, they can still do a PGCE course – but focus on their specific role as musician and educator,’ says Charlotte.
Course tutor was Barry Russell, professor of community music at Leeds College and an associate lecturer at MMU. He’s worked already with the LPO, BBC Philharmonic and other orchestras.
‘A lot of work in the conservatories used to be very old-school when it came to education,’ he says. ‘But professional musicians get very excited about doing it in more creative ways than Peter and the Wolf again!
‘The course has been about equipping the musicians with tools to reflect on and improve what they do. Different points of view come into it – all with the aim of allowing children to come into music.’
The pilot course has still not completed, and there are lessons to be learned and improvements to be made. It has been free for participants this year, and, out of 17 who started, 13 have stuck with it.
Next year’s the course will run again. ‘We’re reconsidering what should come where,’ says Russell. ‘In particular the new technology aspect, which we found the students were really excited about.
‘And they have loved finding ways of quantifying the effect of what they do, and of engaging kids in doing things.’
Feedback from the musicians is very positive. French horn player David Tollington says: ‘It’s been fantastic for picking up tips and sharing ideas with people who do similar things, and the academic knowledge and theory side has been great.’
Eleanor Hudson, a harpist who plays regularly with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, says: ‘I’ve done a lot of education work before and have been put in some situations with no real background to what was expected. It’s helped me know how to help students actually progress, and I feel confident taking sessions on my own now, which I didn’t before.’
Flautist Amina Hussein says: ‘I’ve enjoyed it, even though I wasn’t there a lot of the time because I’ve been working elsewhere. But the main thing for me was being provided with specific reading material to put what we do in the context of the history of music education.
‘The hands-on stuff was most useful for those who were complete beginners, but I’m looking forward to the final semester and working on new technology and collaboration with people in different media.’
