Intern Diaries: Community choirs, Christmas songs & back to school

Two months have passed since my last post and I’m now just over half way through my internship. The L&P calendar for Spring 2012 is super busy, full of really interesting and enjoyable projects.  I was recently at a session in Osmani Primary School with a Year 3 class and they were starting work on a joint project with the Royal Academy of Music. I’m enjoying the variety of work that I’m experiencing as part of my internship and all the lovely people I’m getting to meet!

Neighbourhood Songs at the Spitalfields Music Winter Festival 2011

Recruitment has started once again for the two community singing groups, Spitalfields Singers and Women sing East.  I’m really looking forward to working with both these choirs again and will be very sad to say goodbye to them at the end of this term!  The Women Sing East concert in our Winter Festival was a definite highlight for me.  With the support of Clare I was project managing this concert.  As a musician I have played in many concerts, but this was the first time that I had been on the other side – managing the musicians! The concert was a huge success – the choir sounded absolutely fantastic and Laka sang a wonderful arrangement of the ‘Christmas Song’ to get us all in the Christmas spirit.  This was a truly magical concert – my face muscles ached from smiling so much!

Kathryn Allnutt                                                                                                    Learning and Participation Intern

The Anticipation of 2012

Niharika joined us last year as our Marketing & Communications Intern, working on our Winter Festival. As she finished her time with us, she took a moment to tell us about what she’d been up to over the past few months.

2011 was a fabulous year for me because I had the chance to join Spitalfields Music as their Marketing and Communications intern! I’ve learnt loads with the help of an awesome team. I worked at the recent Winter Festival, which was really exciting as I had the chance to take on different roles such as front of house, concert management and box office.  If you haven’t already, check out some of the photos and reviews from our Winter Festival here.

Currently, The Spitalfields Music HQ is buzzing with anticipation about our Summer Festival 2012: the line-up is ready, artist photo shoots are complete, images are being chosen and written material is being proof-read. We have an exciting range of events in our programme featuring early and contemporary music, music theatre, late night after-dinner concerts, walks, talks, free outdoor events and family activities!

Summer Festival 2012 brochure cover featuring one of our Associate Artists Matthew Barley – renowned cellist and Music Director of BBC2 TV’s Classical Star programme

There will be a lot of fun things on in London during 2012 and Spitalfields Music will be bringing you something you will definitely want to be a part of!

Booking for the Spitalfields Music Summer Festival 2012 is now open!
You can book via our website or call the Box Office on 0207 377 1362 (Monday-Friday, 10am-6pm)

Niharika Jain
Marketing & Communications Intern

Intern Diaries: Christmas lights and festive cheer in Spitalfields

Spitalfields is looking prettier than ever since all the Christmas lights are up in the market and festive cheer is in the air! The Spitalfields Music Winter Festival is now underway, after opening last Saturday with the Christmas Market in Crispin Place which saw puppetry, fashion and of course, live music to get people into the Christmas spirit!

Christmas lights are up in Spitalfields Market

It has been really busy here at Spitalfields Music HQ. The Winter Festival now the Winter Festival is in progress and I am really excited as this is the first time I’m working at our various venues in Spitalfields!

I also recently attended the City of London Sinfonia’s first ever CLoSer event! It was amazing and had a really relaxed atmosphere. After the main performance, individual musicians were available for informal Q&A sessions. The Strings Masterclass event was held at Village Underground which is a great venue (it used be a Victorian warehouse!) I also discovered that the trains on top are actually offices used by the Village Underground staff. There are two more CLoSer events coming up in 2012; head over here to find out more.

I have also been working on our Winter Festival Learning and Participation events’ inserts, and they have been sent to the printers which is very exciting! The festival has an awesome mix of events for the whole family which means we will be drawing in great crowds – I can’t wait!

Niharika Jain
Marketing & Communications Intern

The Winter Festival is now on with tickets available from £5! See our website spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk for further details on contact the Box Office on 020 7377 1362 (Mon-Fri, 10am-6pm).

Intern Diaries: Meet Kathryn

Kathryn Allnutt has joined us as our new Learning and Participation Intern! She plays the French horn, and enjoys chilling in the garden during her free time (even in November!) She shares with us how she has found her first month as a Spitalfields Music intern.

It has now been four weeks since I started my internship working within the L&P team at Spitalfields Music and I’m loving it!  I have been made to feel very welcome in the office (with the frequent offerings of chocolate and brownies!) and I’m now feeling very much part of the team.

My main focus over the past four weeks has been to recruit members for Spitalfields Singers, an exciting new community singing group that meets on Thursday lunchtimes at Hanbury Hall (it’s still not too late to join us!)  The first two rehearsals have been a huge success, with membership now double that of the previous year!

The past four weeks have zoooomed past SO quickly – they do say that time flies when having fun! My initial impression of the office and of Spitalfields Music is one of amazement – amazement both at the exciting and interesting programme of concerts and education projects that they run within Tower Hamlets, but also at how cool, calm and collected everyone is (or at least, appears to be!) in the office despite having so much going on!

I had my first monthly review with Natalie this morning, reflecting on the past month.  Scary to think that I’m already one –sixth of the way through! If the first month is anything to go by, I think I’m in for a very enjoyable (and busy!) six months!

Intern Diary: Niharika explores Spitalfields

We recently had an internal event during which students from the Royal Academy of Music performed at various historic locations in Spitalfields. I worked on the programme book for that event, and got to find out loads about historic Spitalfields! Did you know that some buildings date back to the 1700s and are still standing? Many of the redecorated private properties around Spitalfields were originally craftsmen’s (such as carpenters, blacksmiths, and silk weavers) workshops and doctors’ surgeries. When you are walking around the area, make sure you sneak a peek at the front and see if you can spot any signs dating the building. I found that some still have exterior mechanisms for blinds from ‘back in the day’!

Old blinds mechanism outside a house in Spitalfields

I also find these two metal emblem-sign-cool-badgey-things on a street and have no idea what they are – do you know? [NJ: Thanks to our Twitter followers and our blog readers, I now know these are fire insurance plaques].  I’d love to know how old they are, what they were used for, and if there are any more around Spitalfields?

Fire insurance plaques

Spitalfields is a wonderful area for wandering. During my lunch breaks, I always try to go somewhere new. So far I’ve found loads of great places to eat around the area:

The Crisis Skylight Cafe does amazing baked potatoes and yummy fillings! The cafe is spacious and has really friendly staff.

The Luxe restaurant near the old Spitalfields market has an outdoor cafe part – they make fish finger burgers!

The Flying Burrito does burritos and nachos for a reasonable price, but be warned – if you eat a burrito here, you won’t be able to eat anything else for the rest of the day. To say the burritos here are ‘filling’ would be an understatement.

If you walk towards Brick Lane, you will find a huge selection of Bangladeshi restaurants serving delicious Indian food.

Other updates:

• Two of our Winter Festival events are now SOLD OUT!

• We have created a sneak-preview Winter Festival playlist on Spotify.

• I have had the opportunity to interview Gabriel Crouch, director of Gallicantus, the talented illustrator Joanna Moore, and there is an upcoming interview with Bernadette Russell, co-founder of White Rabbit! All three artists (along with many more) are helping make this year’s Winter Festival programme truly unique! There will be a mix of early music, family events, a storytelling performance, an open mic night, and a unique take on Handel’s Messiah. I am really looking forward to the festival!

• Spitalfields Music is working on a Special Education Needs project and have launched a new campaign with The Big Give. This Christmas, our challenge is to raise £72,000 to ensure our Learning and Participation programme can continue to do the remarkable outreach work it is well known for. If you would like to donate, read about our campaign here.

We have a lot more exciting stuff coming up on our blog – so stay tuned!