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Journey to the Moon

By Judith Finlay

8 Dec 2021

During lockdown, West Sussex Music have been harnessing the power of digital technology to connect with young people in special schools across the county.

Journey to the moon

Although they are now able to deliver sessions face to face, they have continued to utilise the ‘accidental benefit’ of coming together online to reach even more young people and to work with them on a more regular basis.

Working in partnership with Chichester Cathedral and taking advantage of Luke Jerram’s visiting artwork, Museum of the Moon, their autumn term work has focused on exploring a journey to the moon using singing and instrumental playing to represent the various stages.

Workshop leaders led moon related chants and songs, including a new composition written by one of our leaders especially for this project, during online singing sessions. Young musicians experimented with tuned and untuned instruments in their sessions, to create a moon-like soundscape for our journey.

The term’s work culminated in our participating special schools - Littlegreen Academy, Manor Green College, Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee School and St Anthony’s School – coming together under the ethereal blue light of the moon in Chichester Cathedral on 3 and 4 November, to make music together. From the start, everyone was captivated not only by the landscape before them, but also by the process of composing and performing with our workshop leaders. The young people moved seamlessly between singing, playing rhythms, improvising and responding to create a landscape of music using a dazzling array of tuned and untuned instruments.

Inspired by their ownership of the music being created, our young musicians were engaged in the whole experience, as were passing Cathedral visitors, an added bonus to their Journey to the Moon experience.

Journey to the Moon Blog_Djembe_Music Group

What an amazing couple of days with these inspiring young musicians. After introducing repertoire and resources through online sessions, an accidental benefit forced upon us by Covid-19 our young people arrived at the Cathedral ‘in the zone’ and ready to travel to the moon! We all loved being a part of these workshops, watching our young musicians explore and create confidently in a beautiful setting, but with familiar leaders to support their journey. These workshops were all about the creative process, the journey, but there was a real sense of pride and excitement around creating a finished piece and performing too!

Judith

Once again West Sussex Music has gone above and beyond to create an incredible and memorable experience for our pupils. Today was magical and all our pupils loved it. There was so much learning taking place and activities to take part in and we all had a blast! Including myself. Thank you again for being so accommodating for our pupils!

Rosie Gilbert from QEII Silver Jubilee School

This Journey to the Moon workshop was created as part of our Orchestras Inc accessible music programme - A Youth Music funded project.

Music is an incredibly powerful tool providing positive benefits to children’s personal and social development.

Find out more about West Sussex Music