BBC Singers come to New Hall at Winchester College to perform Zadok the Priest with over 400 Hampshire Primary School Pupils

On Thursday 29^thJanuary 2015 Hampshire Music Hub invited over four hundred primary school pupils to take part in two vocal workshops in partnership with the BBC Singers and Winchester College. The workshops took place in the wonderful newly refurbished New Hall at Winchester College and were led by the BBC Singers under the direction of one of their principal guest conductors Paul Brough along with a fabulous accompanist on the piano.

The focus of the workshops was the piece of music that George Frideric Handel wrote for the coronation of George II in 1727, and played at every coronation since then, Zadok the Priest.

 Zadok the Priest is one of the works which has been chosen for the BBC Ten Pieces national music project and we were delighted to be able to work with 15 Hampshire Primary schools in this partnership as part of own Ten Pieces programme of events.

After some initial vocal warm ups led by Lynette, one of the altos from the choir, Paul taught the children a“melancholy yet hopeful” song which they sang beautifully in a three part round. This led into a first performance of the two part children’s chorus version of Zadok the Priest that has been especially written for the BBC Ten Pieces Project.

 After a short break the pupils watched the BBC Ten Pieces film of Zadok the Priest on the huge screen of New Hall, which was a treat in itself! However a real highlight of both sessions was a live performance of the complete original version of the work performed by the full four part BBC Singers. Real spine tingling moments!

After rehearsing the style, diction, interpretation of the words and other performance details the workshops culminated in a polished performance of the abridged version of Zadok the Priest by the children’s choir with the BBC Singers. A performance the children will never forget!

Quotes:

"For most of our children this is the first time they have embarked on this sort of performance -using a score, and singing a classical piece of music but we all learnt so much and had a fabulous time."

"It was their first exposure to professional singing, and it just blew them away. The conductor got such a lot out of them. The best comment made afterwards was - "I never knew I could make a sound like that" - which rather summed it up. They have raised their expectations of themselves."

We would like to express our sincere thanks to the BBC Singers and Winchester College for their roles in enabling such a fantastic opportunity for so many Hampshire children.

BBC Ten Pieces at Hale Primary School

  

Troll from the 'Hall of the Mountain King' chapter

Back in October all the KS2 pupils at Hale Primary School
enjoyed a screening of the BBC Ten Pieces.

The room was darkened, the white board screen and DVD ready to go, the chairs set out like a cinema. The children were excited but didn’t know what to expect!

Barney Harwood introduced the film and we were off on a magical musical journey. We travelled through space and time, down in to a dark cave, up over a mountain, sped off in a really fast car, bobbed across the sea, went through a maze and into a forest and more. Phew!

The clear favourite was Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. One person said “I can’t get the tune out of my head!” Others said “It was dramatic, exciting, tense and nerve racking. It started quietly and slowly and it got louder and louder and faster and faster - we were being chased but we just managed to escape at the end!

We listened to the piece a lot and enjoyed matching our body percussion to the music getting faster and louder all the way through. The ending was great fun as we had to remember when to stop and then start again with a really fast bit.

Next we worked out the rhythm of the first phrase and notated it using apples and pears. We later turned these into quavers and crotchets.


We ended up singing this pattern along to the music at the start:

Apple, apple, apple, pear, apple, pear, apple, pear.

Apple, apple, apple, apple, apple, apple, pear. all x 2

You should try it. It’s great fun!

 Through listening again we discovered that Grieg repeats the same rhythms, does something a bit different and then repeats the first rhythm pattern again and we worked out the structure of the first section of the piece.

We then composed our own rhythm patterns of apples and pears and worked with a partner to create longer patterns. We had a go at playing the patterns in our pairs starting quietly and slowly and getting louder and faster. This is not easy!

Eventually we worked in groups and created our own longer pieces of music based on “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” Some of us wrote new rhythm patterns but some of us liked the original rhythms so much we used them.

Each group carefully chose a set of instruments for their piece. Some used four similar sounding instruments others combined four completely different sounding instruments.

We planned how we were going to achieve our crescendo (gradually getting louder) and most groups decided to do this by players joining in one by one (like Grieg). We discovered that is really tricky to get faster and faster and stay together. 

After some more rehearsal we were ready to perform our new pieces to an audience.

Author: Sian Buckley (HMS Project Lead)

Screening at Thornden Hall

 On the 14 October Thornden Hall, in partnership with the Hampshire Music Education Hub, hosted a free screening of the Ten Pieces film for two hundred and forty KS2 pupils.

Ninety Y3/4 pupils from Otterbourne CE Primary school and another ninety Y4, Y5 and Y6 pupils  from Scantabout Primary school were able to walk up  to Thornden Hall and another sixty Y4 pupils came on the bus from Knightwood school a bit further away.

It was great to be able to show the film on the huge screen at Thornden Hall with the fabulous surround sound. The children really enjoyed the whole experience.

Firm favourites of the children from Otterbourne included Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, Holst’s “Mars” and Mussorgsky’s “Night on the Bare Mountain” whereas the pupils from Scantabout all really liked Beethoven’s “Symphony Number 5”!

Opinion was divided over the Anna Meredith piece, “Connect It”, with some pupils not really knowing what to make of it, probably as it was so different from all the other pieces, with others absolutely loving it!

The schools are going to be using the film in a variety of different ways  over the coming weeks. Many will be listening again to a different piece each week as part of their assemblies, so opinions and favourites may well change, while some will be using the pieces as inspiration for dance or their own creative compositions. Some pupils may even like to write something for this blog!

It will be great to find out if any other pieces emerge as new favourites and to see and hear the results of the dance and compositions - We can’t wait!

Thank you to Thornden Hall for hosting the screening and thank you all for coming!

On the 7th October we ran a Ten Pieces Spotlight session for teachers at Jermyn's House, Romsey.
It was a well received session with plenty of “audience participation”! We listened, notated and played along to one piece and responded through movement, dance, props, drawing, colour and writing wordscapes to another and much, much  more! Giving us all plenty of ideas of how to inspire our pupils to respond creatively to their favourite pieces!

We are offering another  practical session on the Ten Pieces at the Wessex Music Conference – 30^th January 2015. Sign up and be inspired to inspire!