Educating children about climate and ecology through music.
This fabulous partnership between the English Chamber Orchestra’s Close Encounters team, Urbanwise.London, Hammersmith and Fulham Council and Fulham Academy Trust, brought local Primary schools together to become part of a musical exploration of the Thames. Exploring its ecology and history, the children made and created music from recycled materials.
Urbanwise ran preparatory Instrument making workshops with each participating primary school and instruments were made from recycled materials collected by the children, including egg cartons, straws, cardboard boxes, straws and plastic bottles!
The Music Makers workshop run by the English Chamber Orchestra were hosted by Fulham Cross Academy and included a variety of musical activities, such as learning rhythm, and singing the Mudlarks song.
All these activities culminated in the Thames Music Makers Concert. The world-renowned English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) with support from the Barratt Foundation, performed this concert at the wonderful Riverside Studios. All participating Primary schools attended along with 3 budding violinists from Fulham Cross Girls school and the Orchestra took a musical tour through 400 years of the Thames, with key musical works illustrating this journey and, a performance of the Mudlarks song, newly orchestrated by the ECO and performed by the Primary pupils.
Quotes from the teachers
“The children have spent so much time at home because of lock down and we have not had any outside professionals come into the school since Covid so I think it’s really important for them to see people other than us!”
“I really like the idea that this is about recycling and about creating something out of something that is already there, it’s really key and really important for them.”
“It’s been so incredible for them to learn from music specialists I just think it’s a rich opportunity and I am a crier, so it’s just moved me!”
Quotes from the children
“I think this project is exciting and it’s even helping our planet.”
“I enjoyed learning some history in the songs and the music.”
“It was great because there were loads of different people that made loads of different instruments and I think it was really cool and I had never seen a performance before.”
“I haven’t seen any performance like this before.”
Quotes from the secondary school violinists
“It’s a good experience to play with musicians who have been in the industry for a long time and to involve primary school children it also influences them to join the industry as well.”
Videos from the day
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1muqCQu_PZZqk3numaq4w1g8zaL8ZZY57/view?usp=sharing 6 min version
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eMg1CoSSz4Etktv8gkG9OLs_x-qygYls/view?usp=sharing 3 min version
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15ioaw8qyXFfrKO0TOsoJ9kkjn74WrJZF/view?usp=sharing audio mudlarks song