Three classical musicians (Lisa J Coates (mezzo soprano), Graziana Presicce (piano) and Dawn Walters (composer)) have delivered a two-hour song-writing workshop and a performance with a Year 4 class at Stockwell Academy.
The workshop included different elements of activities to maximise engagement with the topic discussed, create variety within the workshop session and included “something for everyone” to enjoy. Activities included:
• Fun physical and vocal warm-ups which incorporated the children introducing themselves.
• Listening to songs performed by the team inspired by an appreciation of the natural world, including compositions by Dawn Walters to highlight aspects of musical structure and activities on word-painting – such as the way music can be major/minor (happy/sad).
• A group discussion about climate change on the coast: first by eliciting knowledge the children already had, followed by a timed scavenger hunt game, where the children found information dotted around the room and reported back.
• The discussion was followed by a brief group drawing activity to encourage the class to think about the coast and the themes discussed, by drawing “their own coast”.
In the song-writing part of the workshop, led by Lisa, the children expressed their preference on some of the ideas they came up for the topic and lyrics of the song. Flooding was the selected topic and various ideas written down by the class were used for the lyrics which Lisa incorporated into the final song.
The three musicians returned to the school on 15 July to share the final work with the class and perform together the new song: ‘Water flooding through the world’. Whilst originally the musicians did not anticipate a performance of the song as part of this project, the teacher asked them if they could open up the sharing to other classes from the school, as well as the children’s parents.
The sharing therefore turned to a world premiere of the new piece. On the day, the musicians first spent some time showing the class the new song and teaching them the chorus. To extend the performance a little, they also decided to add two further songs: one of Dawn’s compositions and closing the performance with “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”, which the children like to sing in assembly.
