Music and Emotion: Songs from St Anne’s Primary School

Throughout the summer term, Indian classical vocalist Ranjana Ghatak and story-teller Vayu Naidu will be working with children from one of our Neighbourhood Schools, St Anne’s Primary School in Whitechapel to explore emotions through music, stories and poetry.

Their first session was so successful, we wanted to share this recording taken yesterday morning. We’ve obviously got some very talented young singers in the borough!

In these weekly meetings, the children will explore five emotions – love, fear, anger, wonder and courage – and focus on expressing feelings through music.

Watch this space!

In Pictures: Puppetry at The Cherry Trees

We’ve been working with The Cherry Trees school in Bow, Tower Hamlets, for over ten years delivering enjoyable music sessions suitable for boys with special educational needs. Recently, the children presented Me, Myself, Us! to their classmates in preparation for their performance in May at Rich Mix.

In addition to writing songs and singing together, they worked with professional puppeteers Zoilo Lobera and Andre Verissimo to create these lovely puppets and masks below. Let us know what you think of them!

 

Me, Myself, Us!

The Cherry Trees School. Photo: Ruxandra Mateiu.

Over the last few weeks we’ve been working with The Cherry Trees boys school in Bow delivering fun and engaging creative sessions including drumming, singing, songwriting, live electronics, improvising and puppets!

Opening in 1997, the school works with primary school pupils who have behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. Spitalfields Music has been presenting musical activities at the school for just over (a whopping) ten years!

Me, Myself, Us is a project which encourages the children to think about how people use their voices and faces to communicate, how they might move and talk, and the things they might say. What can you tell from someone’s expression? Have a look at one of the excellent puppets they’ve made with puppeteers Zoilo Lobera and Andre Verissimo.

The Cherry Trees – Me, Myself, Us

Below are some songs we’d like to share with you, written by the Red & Blue Class and the Green Class with singer and composer Roshi Nasehi.

The children will be performing to their classmates tomorrow, so good luck boys!

A public performance of the project will take place at Rich Mix on Tuesday 7 May at 1.30pm.

Memory Mapper
By the Red & Blue class

A fast motorbike in Canada
A steady camel in Tunisia
The strongest man in Malta
The best Las Vegas break-dancer

In Spain I was a footballer
In Iran a taxi traveler
And now a memory mapper
With Egypt on my radar.

I’d like to jog and surf America
Keep cool with paper fans in Australia
Bob sleigh like Cool Runnings in Jamaica
Swim in shark jammed waters

Maybe I could be a Polish snowman maker
A Japanese computer gamer
A Congolese Rainforest photographer
Or a Bangladeshi rickshaw driver?

I wonder what it’s like in Australia
Africa, China and the rest of Asia
New challenges ahead, new flavours
The hot, the chilly and the in between areas

Ipoding & Other Adventures
By the Green Class

Cliff falling in Portugal
Swimming in Morocco
Dive into the sea in Malta
See Polar Bears in the North Pole

View skyscrapers in Dubai
Play field sport in Japan
Climb the rocks in the USA
Or ipoding in my caravan

Explore more about The Cherry Trees project on our website.

Canon Barnett Takeover Festival: Treasure Hunt

On Friday 22 March, Canon Barnett Primary School will be hosting their very own music festival: Canon Barnett Takeover Festival, programmed and performed by their Year 3 & 4 students. Involving not just the children but also parents and staff, the school will be turned into a concrete jungle of rhythms, music and poetry; along with the help of musicians Jessie Maryon-Davies and Rus Pearson.

Pupils from Canon Barnett Primary School. Photo: Alys Tomlinson.

Over the past few weeks, the students have been developing a dynamic  expression of the cityscape through songs, sounds and poetry.

Part of this included the creation of Treasure Hunt, a collaborative poem wherein each student contributed a line loosely based around their morning trip to school.

Treasure Hunt

There’s a blue door
Knock three times
Walk down the corridor
Watch out for cobwebs
Walk up the stairs

 Into the kitchen
There are plates and small cups
Open the oven

 Walk in, stay low
Open the golden door
Dance into the garden
Grab a bike and ride

 Into the sewers
Watch out for poisonous spiders
And toxic poo!

Climb up the toilet pipe
Into the Queen’s toilet
In Buckingham Palace
Say hello to the Queen
She will invite you to swim in her pool

 It’s very hot, be careful
Swim until you find a cave
There are cockroaches
And mice

 And a man
Ask him  – where do we go?
He’ll tell you to shrink

 Find a rat’s hole
There will be five cockroaches
Riding a bike
And a man-eating spiders
The spiders will transform into two doors

 Open number one
Walk inside
You will be surrounded by sweets
Don’t eat them
They’ll be out of date

Find the door
To Gunthorpe Street
Walk out

Don’t tread on the grass
There’s a school
Open the door

Canon Barnett Takeover Festival: Poetic Parents

As 22 March approaches, we want to share with you some of the work that we’ve been doing with Canon Barnett Primary School over the last few weeks in preparation for their festival. And it’s not just the kids that are getting involved, it’s the parents too!

Renowned performance poet Chris Redmond led a creative writing session for parents of children at the school in which he encouraged them to think about what the heart of the city might look, smell, move and sound like as if it was a physical living ‘thing’. Sitting in a circle, they took it in turns to voice their thoughts, describing what it meant to them as if the heart of the city was beating right there in the room with them.

At the end of the session, their comments were read out, one after the other, and The Heart of the City was born! By breaking down the artistic process, every single person had the ability to contribute creatively and helped to create a verse inspired by the city we all live in.

By working collectively, the parents not only created an imaginative piece to enthuse their kids, they also showed real teamwork demonstrating the ability of creative sessions to form social bonds and friendships.

The parents were so pleased with the outcome of their poem, they want to perform a reading at the end of the festival.

A true group effort!

The Heart of the City

Cracked concrete with grass growing through
I see a lot of colour in this heart
I can see snow
I can see lots of different feelings, thought and sound
I see the unfairness in the heart
Bumpy and bleeding
I can see a protective layer to this heart
I can see people huddled tightly together
I can smell coffee and smoke, wine and food
Building work, black sticky tar, smell of burned rubber
I can smell the grass, the flowers growing, the soil
I can smell gas and petrol
Pollution
Freshly cut grass, fresh bread
Dust after rain
Busy, big heart
Palm of the hand, surrounded by animals
Glass case ‘do not touch’
A noisy heart, a very busy heart
A lot of music, beats, talking, words
You can’t hear the words but they are in there
Chatter, white noise
Jagged heart, irregular
A square and triangle,
Always changing, alternating
Always having something different
Star shaped, rotating, different things happening
Nameless shape
No words to describe it.

Written by parents from Canon Barnett at a Creative Writing Session on Thursday 14 February 2013

The Heart of the City – brainstorming

The Heart of the City – thought processes