Images and names of pupils supplied by parents with their full permission.
Lily, Magdalene and Butterfly are three outstanding young musicians studying for their Gold Arts Award at The Purcell School.
As part of this, they organised their own concert, and have donated all the proceeds to TCR’s Commonwealth Hurricane Appeal. The poster was also designed by the pupils, and they are doing all their own marketing, promotion and fundraising.
From July 6th-16th, a group of talented young musicians and staff from The Purcell School and Wells Cathedral School will be travelling to Antigua and Barbuda with award-winning musicians from the Royal Over-Seas League to run training programmes with the Antigua and Barbuda Youth Symphony Orchestra.
All the young musicians involved in this programme have outreach leadership experience. Several of them are also members of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.
They will also be running a special programme called ‘Go Compose, Antigua’ for school-aged composers involved in the new pilot training programme for the Commonwealth International Composition Award.
Her Excellency, Karen-Mae Hill, the High Commissioner of Antigua and Barbuda has organised an exciting programme of masterclasses, rehearsals and performances for the visiting musicians.
In January 2019, Alison Cox visited Antigua and Barbuda to promote the new Commonwealth International Composition Award. The High Commissioner worked very hard to ensure that Alison was able to meet and speak to as many key partners in Antigua as possible. She was invited to speak the national radio and TV, including ‘Antigua and Barbuda Today’ with Patrice Martin and Khan Cordice. Also, Alison met His Excellency The Governor-General of Antigua and Barbuda, Sir Rodney Williams and his wife, Lady Williams.
Watch this space for further information about this groundbreaking project.
Go Compose is a 1-day training programme for young composers which was created by the UK’s most well-known new music organisation, Sound and Music and has been run in venues all over the UK for several years. In 2019, The Commonwealth Resounds visited Antigua to deliver a wide variety of musical outreach including several Go Compose sessions for composers on the island.
Go Compose offers the young composers a ‘crash course’ in composition, where in a single day, they are coached by expert composition tutors and professional instrumentalists and enabled to write a short piece of music, which is then rehearsed and recorded. This provides a very positive first experience for young emerging composers.
GO COMPOSE, ANTIGUA! included the following participants:
The young composers wrote for four instruments – clarinet, viola, steelpan and cello, some of which were familiar to them and others which were not! There was a lot of lively discussion about combining and notating different musical techniques and special effects. Graphic scores were used by those who wanted to present their music visually in a different way.
All 10 young composers managed to finish their pieces in a single day, by working incredibly hard and making full use of the opportunity.
To close the project, there was a fascinating concert of new pieces written by the young composers during ‘Go Compose, Antigua! on the previous day!
The concert was attended by Their Excellencies the Governor-General of Antigua and Barbuda and the High Commissioner, plus everyone in the ABYSO. Each young composer introduced their own piece before it was played.
The Governor-General and the High Commissioner chose three of the 10 compositions to be performed in the Commonwealth@70 Gala Concert on Sunday July 14th.
Everyone was extremely proud of ALL the young composers for their hard work and achievement.
On Tuesday, 14th May, Alison Cox OBE, Founder and Chair of Trustees of The Commonwealth Resounds (TCR), was invited to the Houses of Parliament by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, UK to speak about Creativity in the Commonwealth. She was joined by Mr Gee the Poet and Daniel Hatton from the Commonwealth Fashion Council.
During the speech, Alison emphasized the importance of musical creativity and its impact on musicians and their livelihoods. She highlighted TCR’s latest high-profile project, the Commonwealth International Composition Award, and other projects such as the Commonwealth Pianorama and Panorpheus, which were run for CHOGM in previous years.
The Commonwealth Resounds also organized some imaginative cultural entertainment for the Parliamentary Association. A spectacular Commonwealth juggler, Emmanuael the Magnificent, juggled with bowls, spinning plates, skittles, and even with Parliamentary chairs! Emmanuel’s performance was enhanced by young jazz musicians from The Purcell School, who created improvisations to accompany the performance