Park Royal Blasts into Space with Camerata

Manchester Camerata recently collaborated with Parkroyal Community School in Macclesfield on a week long project forming part of the school’s enterprising Arts Week.

Based on the theme of a journey through space, the week culminated in a sharing performance involving every single pupil in the school, in which the creativity and energy of the children was as dazzling as the sunshine out on the school playground.

Camerata musicians Amina Hussain (flute), Heather Bills (cello), Dave Tollington (Horn) and Simon Davies (Bassoon) helped each class to create individual musical pictures of their journey through space, and Gemma Bass (violin) and Hannah McCabe (Clarinet) accompanied the reception children on their own music and movement interstellar travels.

In the final sharing performance, given al fresco, each class stepped forward from its place in the circular ‘space station’ to perform its own space verse, interspersed with the communal chorus song, sung in canon by the entire school. Parents watched the proceedings from beyond the final frontier! All the participants took great delight in the alien space costumes they had made-and this goes for the pupils as well as the Camerata musicians!

The project was a perfect example of creative music making instigated by the young people themselves, and the resulting blossoming of confidence during the week was a joy to behold.