Talented young musicians from Lincolnshire Music Service’s Virtual Youth Orchestra have worked with Chineke! Orchestra over the past 12 months, plus music leaders, Music Hub tutors and freelance orchestral musicians, to create a remarkable virtual performance to be premiered on Wednesday 7 July at 7pm.
The Covid-19 crisis presented a major challenge for Lincolnshire Music Service. However they found innovative solutions to keep young people engaged in making music through digital teaching, rehearsals and performances involving hundreds of young people from across the county.
In addition, the national charity, Orchestras Live, created Share Sound; a major digital project bringing together young musicians from Lincolnshire, Cumbria, County Durham, Nottinghamshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, to work with professional orchestras to learn from and inspire each other in shared music making.
Young musicians from the six Share Sound groups joined forces with musicians from professional orchestras, Chineke! Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, to premiere their compositions and showcase their talents in a grand finale film production.
Produced by Sheffield-based film-maker Will Roberts of Vox Multimedia, the film production brings together video recordings of the new music young people have created with the orchestras, their tutors and James Redwood, the artistic director for the entire project.
The young people have been fully involved in the process, creating, performing and recording the music virtually, deciding on the look and content, as well as presenting many of the parts of the film. Local production companies including Dawn Productions (audio) and Faded Productions (video) were also instrumental in bringing it together.
Jan Ford, Senior Creative Producer, Orchestras Live said: “These large-scale projects usually take months to pull together. We managed to get Share Sound up and running in about 2 weeks! The sheer determination of everyone involved to give young people a creative voice when everything around them was locked down has been astounding.”
Jennifer McKie, Head of Lincolnshire Music Service said: “It will be truly emotional listening to this finale knowing the immense efforts that have been put in by young people, staff members, partners and of course our local, as well as national production teams. It’s been such a difficult year for everyone but ‘First Light’ by LYVO demonstrates such positivity and new beginnings. It really is an incredible accomplishment and congratulations to everyone involved. We hope you enjoy it! “.
James Redwood, Share Sound Artistic Director said: “Working on Share Sound has been extraordinary – such a wide range of brilliant musicians both young and not-so-young and bringing all of their musical imaginations together in the six new compositions has been a hugely gratifying challenge. The staff from the participating hubs have been inspirational in their commitment to their young people and the creative and musical input from the orchestral musicians has brought depth and range to the project.”
Ishani O’Connor, Learning and Participation Manager, Chineke! Foundation said: “Share Sound has demonstrated how resilient, adaptable and creative musicians can be in the face of change and unique challenges. The project has proved to be an important example of how we can harness technology to innovate musically and maintain a sense of an ensemble during a period of isolation. We’re so pleased that Chineke! has had the opportunity to work with such committed and promising young musicians in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire of all ages and backgrounds.”
Full details and how to obtain free tickets for the performance here
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