NW News & Updates......

The Prospectors Performance
The Prospectors, Stockport CP’s resident band, performed at the Stockport Beer Festival on the 29th May.  With a few new members and a good sized audience they performed an energetic and inspiring set of
classic pop covers and remixed nineties dance tunes. We are hopefully performing at the Mind Body Boogie festival in August, more details to follow.

Stockport CP beginners

These weekly sessions are continuing with more focus on individuals and their development. The participants have requested a performance for friends and family at the end of term.

Consultancy work at Sheffield University
We have been employed to provide some Consultancy for Sheffield University to enable them to make the contents of their Music and Creative Media course accessible to a potential student who has significant impairments. Ray has been trying unsuccessfully to access this course for 3 years.

On the 9th June we attended an initial consultation with both the student and staff to establish the physical barriers this student faces and current structure of the course and technical set-up.  We are now producing a report detailing the software and hardware needed to remove barriers as well as suggestions for adapting course material.  This report will include information on software/hardware costs and providers and research into the various options available.

Individual Support
A couple of individuals have approached us about using their individual budget to buy in our services to deliver one to one music lessons.  We have been booked to deliver 9 weekly sessions for an individual in Stockport starting on the 3rd July

Digital Beginnings
We are now working on a joint project with two schools in Wigan.  One school primarily deals with children who are autistic and the other deals with children that have significant physical impairments. We have started the 5 observation sessions and will begin delivering the sessions in September. We have funding for 2 terms and the schools are looking into finding funds via their connections with Wigan rugby club for a 3rd terms work. 

We Are Here

We are working in partnership with legendary Manchester venue Band on the Wall and Gorton Education Village with pupils from mainstream and SEN schools to produce a sound and mixed media installation in the school. The project will be based on a theme of 'Journeys and Maps', linking in with the schools' multicultural and multilingual intake. The six pieces created will focus on 6 geographic regions of the world:  China (SE Asia) and Africa, Carribean and Pakistan/India, Eastern Europe and Middle East. The project is lasting 2 terms and is entirely funded by Band on the Wall.

Re-mix

We are delivering our first project in partnership with local disability arts organisation Full Circle Arts. Re-mix is a summer project for disabled young people with creative workshops leading to a celebratory event where the work will be shared. If this project is successful, we hope to offer more music workshops from September.

Training

We are in the final negotiations with Music Leader NW who will support us with associate team training for this financial year. This should allow the NW team to have a few days training before term starts in September and to then meet once a term.

East Mid's in the sun! (for now...)

Hello... busy times here so just a quick update with what's happening now, more to come! Music Our Way which is a music tech course for older young people in the region is going really well with some interesting pieces of music emerging. Over 35 people have been involved so far and the project will end with a performance night in Mansfield at The Old Library in July..

Drake Music and Salamanda Tandem

Arts Work with People in Nottinghamshire Seminars

14th and 15th July 2 - 5pm

Dear Arts, Health and Care Professionals

If you or anyone you know is interested in arts, and disability work in Nottinghamshire do get in touch!

In order to contribute we would like to invite you to one of our consultation seminars:


14th July 2 - 5pm at Drake Music - Blue Water Studios in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire
or
15th July 2 - 5pm at the Salamanda Tandem offices in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire.

Its all about how we can help support and develop a fertile arts and disability practice in Nottinghamshire over the next few years. We have been commissioned by Nottinghamshire County Council's Arts Service, to undertake a consultation project with both experienced professionals and other artists who may be new to the field but are interested in reaching disabled people through the arts in Nottinghamshire. For development to happen we need to look at what the barriers are for arts, health and carer professionals working in Nottinghamshire - e.g. work opportunities, funding, volunteering, training issues etc and would therefore like to know your thoughts.

Salamanda Tandem and Drake Music are conducting the seminars, and there will be a series of focused questions to discuss. If you can't make either event but would like to contribute, we can send out the questions to you via email, or if you'd rather have a chat by telephone that would be great too.

Please forward to anyone you feel would like to make a contribution.

RSVP by July 10th 2009.

Warm Wishes

Shirley Novak

East Midlands Programme Manager Drake Muisc

Two Tick

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to share the good news that Drake Music was awarded in April with the "Two Tick - Positive About Disabled People" symbol to use with all our recruitment and publicity. This symbol is awarded by Job Centre Plus to promote organisations which comply to their 5 comittments. You can find further information about this here

This award is reviewed annually.

Enjoy the sunshine everyone!
Christine

Tromsø Videos

Footage of the three sections of Havmannen's Sønn featuring Charlotte's compositions are now on YouTube:

The sønn is born

The sønn plays with the birds

His mother is alone

Bear in mind, this was performed in temperatures of about -8˚ !

If you're unaware of the background to this work, check out previous posts on this blog:

I can't believe they ride bikes here

I found heaven on earth!

Doug

Free software

There is now a Digital Beginnings blog to document this programme of work which you can link to from the blog list on the right.

The first post lists free software which can be of use to schools and other musicians. We plan to add to and edit this list as the project progresses.

Doug

South West update - March 2009

Hi there!

Things feel very different at the end of the spring term to how they were at the beginning and we're looking forward to a full programme of music sessions for disabled school pupils in Bristol and the surrounding area throughout the summer term. I don't have enough time to go into the creative focus for each session unfortunately, but here's an outline of what we're doing and (given the need for increased focus on finance and business structure) how it's paid for:

Mondays

Half day at Briarwood School funded by Bristol Arts and Music Service (as part of Wider Opportunities) and the school

Tuesdays

Full day at St. Roses' school, working towards the end of term 'PROM' performance as well as the continuation of the NOCN music course pilot with Bradley Warwick, funded entirely by the school

Wednesdays

Half day at Emerson's Green School, funded entirely by the school

Thursdays

Full day at Claremont school, funded by local Trusts.

Also evening sessions at Hareclive Youth Club funded by Youth Opportunities Fund.

Fridays

Half day at the City Academy Bristol supporting Jordan Andow through his music GCSE course funded by the school's Inclusion budget.

We're also doing some work with disabled dancer / drummer Michael Mitchell of Dance Aware to enable him to integrate drumming into his dance workshops using Assistive Music Technology (paid for by a Trust).

Curriculum Development work is moving forward strongly and we're keeping our fingers crossed that we get the £80,000 we've applied to the Esmée Fairbairn foundation for to continue this work. We are also in the process of commissioning UK-wide research into the state of music education for disabled  pupils, for which we hope to get funding from the Big Lottery Research Fund. I've posted a copy of the outline proposal on Googledocs if you're interested. (The focus is stated as being SEN pupils rather than disabled pupils for reasons of academic clarity). 

Other things happening at the moment:

Tromsø

I've received the full video of Havmannen's Sønn, including Charlotte's music, which I'll edit and post online when I have a chance (!?!) It looks and sounds great.

Sing Up

We're currently booking in the 5 pilot sessions for the summer term and are running a training / planning day for the Sing Up area leaders with whom we'll be delivering the sessions on 7th April.

Last Friday (27th) I attended the Sing Up 'Beyond The Mainstream' gathering in Birmingham along with all the 30-or-so other organisations involved in this programme of work throughout the UK. Sing Up are so pleased with what we're doing that even before our pilot has completed they have already asked us to create more resources for the Sing Up Song Bank . Furthermore, we are potentially looking at working on a more strategic level with the new Beyond The Mainstream manager, Jenny Young, to manage and collate accessible resources from across all the other projects. This is clearly a great opportunity!

Digital Beginnings

Though not entirely a SW programme, I'm co-ordinating the whole thing so here's an update on the Youth Music funded part of this work. Music sessions are currently being booked in the SW, NW and EMids to add to the Connecting Across Difference sessions which have just completed in London. Lead Musicians from each region will be gathering in Bristol on 8th April to review the work so far and make plans for the upcoming sessions, as well as playing with some AMT of course!

Barrs Court Music Motivator Programme

I learned last Friday that, in addition to the Youth Music 'Make It Sound' money awarded to Digital Beginnings, we have received a second slice of funding from this YM programme in the form of £28,000 for work at Barr's Court School, Hereford throughout 2009/10/11. The plan is to create a complete scheme of work at KS3 / 4 within the 'Special Curriculum'. We'll be delivering the work in partnership with the school, 'Music Pool', a Hereford based Community Music Organisation, and 'Broad Oak Studios' a local recording studio.

Colston Hall Education

We are looking at going into partnership with the Colston Hall in Bristol to develop an accessible music making facility in their education department as part of the brand new foyer which is nearly complete.

Er, think that's if for now, best crack on then! Thanks so much to all the SW Musicians who have been working so hard to make all this happen!

Doug Bott

i totally agree and the good news is invoiced income is increasing in regions at the moment. however it is bits and  bobs here and there which makes it difficult to plan strategically and to offer our participants sustainable provision.

what we could do with is a detailed discussion within DM on the best way of identifying the key people regionally and nationally and finding the best way to pursuade them to fund our work either because of legal requirements or their own gvt/strategic agendas. 

if we move in the same way, on mass, as a national organisation we will have much more pursuasive power and a greater sustainable impact, which would be very exciting.

lis