Grand effort by Craigie School

Jun 20 2008

CRAIGIE Primary School in Perth has been awarded £1000-worth of musical instruments, supplied by Yamaha Music UK.

The school was one of the five regional runners-up of the MusicQuest competition 2007/08.

The competition was open to all schools involved in MusicQuest 2007/08 and explored the children’s creativity and compositional skills.

The MusicQuest project ran between October 2007 and February 2008, and was created in partnership with Classic FM, Music Makers, Yamaha Music UK and the Philharmonia Orchestra based in London.

Its aim was to introduce primary school students to classical music.

In Perth 16 schools were involved in MusicQuest. The quest ended with a school workshop followed by a performance at Perth Concert Hall by the music in education arm of the Philharmonia – The Elastic Band.

Craigie Primary School’s headteacher Christeen Williamson explained: “At Craigie the P5/6 and P6 classes signed up for MusicQuest.

“Over the allotted period these students listened, discussed, experienced and composed music based on composers from John Adams to Beethoven, developing a much clearer concept of orchestral classical music and the instruments involved.

“Then on the day of the concert the pupils at Craigie met two musicians from the orchestra, a violinist and a viola player, who arrived at the school to lead a workshop.

“This gave all the pupils a chance to try a Yamaha violin and learn different rhythms which would be needed for the performance of one of the pieces in the concert.

“The children and teachers thoroughly enjoyed the concert, which started with the musicians placed around the auditorium, both stalls and balcony, playing Ravel’s “Bolero”. As the piece progressed, the orchestra finally came together on stage. This unique way of introducing the music allowed the individual timbres of the instruments to be heard and the physical movement of the players was very exciting for the audience to watch.

“This concert was music-in-education at its best.”

As a final extension to the project there was a Nationwide composition competition with a final prize of £10,000 worth of Yamaha instruments and the winning composition to be performed at ClassicFM Live concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

To enter the competition the schools had to compose a piece of music inspired by one of the works they had studied.

Both Craigie classes entered a piece and the P5/6 “African Fury” won the regional £1000 prize.

Music teacher Debra Salem said: “The judges liked the idea of the fanfares and having a battle and the class were also inspired by the stories of African drumming. They had also done some rhythm work on minimalism and we have some great drums so we combined all these ideas to make the piece.”

The MusicQuest first prize was awarded to Ysgol Pen-Y-Bryn, North Wales.