From 20th May - 4th July 2009, thousands of young people will sing in a series of events that stretch from the west to east coast of England. Songlines - Singing Coast to Coast is the first project of its kind in the UK and will see performances in towns from Barrow on the west coast, all the way across to Hartlepool on the east coast, with 17 stop-offs along the route in just over one month.
This musical journey is a large scale celebration of the singing achievements of Sing Up Cumbria - the national singing programme - which launched in Cumbria 18 months ago, benefitting over 6000 Cumbrian primary age children and Sing Up Dales, which launched in January 2008 and has since reached over 2500 pupils aged 5-15. Singing helps children to learn more effectively and improves confidence. Sing Up gives groups of young people from around the region the opportunity to sing together and with other choirs and music groups.
The project draws on the traditional West-East migration line across the North of England and will celebrate the heritage of these towns, and the people that live there. Each performance will be centred around local Sing Up communities, but will also involve schools, community choirs, drumming groups, folk musicians and storytellers, who will discover, write and perform songs and stories that both represent and celebrate the place in which they live.
Central to the delivery of each performance are the 60 Young Vocal Leaders; secondary school students from each community who have chosen to promote singing and lead songs and games with primary age children. Each community along the Songlines journey has been asked to gather songs and stories that represent their community as it is now, or has been in the past, and that help define their collective identity. Over the course of nearly a month, the communities will perform these songs and stories in a series of performances - first in their own town, and then in the next town along the line. As well as leading singing, each performance will compose and add a verse to an epic ballad about the Songlines journey, which will grow as the route from coast to coast progresses, and performed at key points along the way.
Songlines events in each town will herald the arrival of the Songlines ballad and the young vocal leaders. At the end of the project, all the communities will come together for one final, culminatory performance, in which the entire ballad will be performed for the first time.
Once the performance aspect of the project is finished, the collected works will be archived and made available at a number of libraries and museums along the route, ensuring that they are accessible for years to come and form a valuable resource for future generations. We hope that the project will not only help communities find out more about their own musical heritage, but will also encourage them to look beyond their own area and learn more about neighbouring towns.
Organisations involved include SoundWave, a not-for-profit music organisation based in Workington, and Changeling productions based in County Durham in the North East, in partnership with Extended Services and 45 schools across the county: Barrow-in-Furness Islands, Workington, Wigton, Penrith and Rural Penrith. Other Sing Up projects in Cartmel, Kendal, Kirkby Stephen and the Carlisle Cathedral Outreach programme are also involved bringing the total to 68 schools.
Comments (1)
This looks like a very useful start to a potentially exciting resource for schools across the North.
Thanks!
Posted by Mike Carter | June 3, 2009 6:26 PM