CHESTER FESTIVALS EDUCATION PARTNERSHIP

Manchester Camerata are delighted to confirm that we will continue to bring inspiring music-based creative learning projects to Chester and the North West throughout 2009/10 thanks to the generous support of The Bank of America Charitable Foundation.

Delivered as part of the Chester Festivals Education Partnership, this year’s main project, ‘Songs of the Earth’, will explore themes of songs, lyrics, poetry and the environment through music. The project will encompass six separate but linked community arts-based learning projects, developed in partnership with some of Chester’s most exciting festivals.

As part of the Chester Literature Festival schools in the Chester area will creatively explore sections of a poem through music with Camerata musicians, a composer and a writer/poet. The participating schools will join together to perform the entire poem during the Literature Festival in October 2009. Camerata will also deliver three Family Music Days in Chester during the next 12 months, the first of which will take place during the Chester Summer Music Festival in July 2009. In addition, Camerata will work with a wide range of stakeholders throughout the Chester community to create new works.

The centrepiece of the project will be the ‘Songbook of the Earth’. This will engage 15 schools from communities in which Bank of America Associates live – Chester, The Wirral and Greater Manchester. Each school will work with Camerata musicians, a composer and a poet to create a new ‘song cycle’, drawing inspiration from science, the environment, geography, diversity and community into the song-writing process.  Songbook of the Earth will culminate in a special gala performance of the song cycle by the participating young people, a professional singer and Camerata musicians at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, April 2010. Each song will be published in a printed songbook, documenting the project, following the gala performance.