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The project

School of BaROCK was due to be performed at Bridlington Spa in March 2020, however due to COVID-19 restrictions, the project had to be reimagined and delivered online.

Developed in partnership with Classically Yours, East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Orchestras Live, Remarkable Arts and Sinfonia Viva, the original project which took place between January and March and involved a class group from Bay Primary School, Kings Mill School and Martongate Primary School, alongside the Bridlington Remarkable Rock Choir. The participating groups worked with composer James Redwood, Sinfonia Viva’s Leader and Artistic Director Sophie Rosa and double bassist Dave Ayre to create new songs and instrumental pieces inspired by the theme of Seasons.

These songs were going to be performed by the groups that had created them, supported by a Remarkable Arts Rock Ensemble and Sinfonia Viva, who were also going to play Seasons inspired music by Vivaldi, Roxanna Panufnik and Astor Piazzolla in a large scale performance at Bridlington Spa.  

Midsummer Groove was written by children and teachers from Kings Mill School with James Redwood, Dave Ayre and Sophie Rosa, inspired by Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

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A change of plan

Due to lockdown it wasn't until August 2020 that James Redwood and an ensemble of 8 musicians from the orchestra came together in Derby for a socially distanced recording session, to record the orchestral accompaniments for the 5 newly written pieces along with a movement from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.  Will Roberts from Vox Multimedia filmed the session, and Derby LIVE supported the recording.

The new focus of this project then became for the participants to learn all four songs, so they could record themselves singing them at home and submit recordings to be included in the final films. 

Seasons Song written by James Redwood with teachers from Bay & Martongate Primary Schools in Bridlington, Kings Mill School Driffield, and Mark Howley from Remarkable Arts.

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Challenges

We delivered our first digital sessions in school and with the choir – and everything was going swimmingly.  At the start of the week of the second school workshops both Bay and Martongate primary schools contacted us to inform us that their year groups had been sent home and they were isolating.  Unfortunately Bay decided at this point that they were unable to continue with the project, whilst Martongate were able to include the video resources we had created to incorporate the project into their home learning offer.  Pupils submitted their recordings from home, as filmmaker Will was no longer able to go into school to film them.

The digital choir sessions continued, and involved not only members of Bridlington Remarkable Rock Choir, but also choir members from Stamford Bridge Community Choir, who worked with us on a previous Classically Yours project, along with some other interested participants.  Many of the participants have told us how important the choir has been to them:

“Thank you all for this precious gift, inviting us all to be a part of something so special, it was wonderful when you first visited us in Bridlington at the beginning of the year but even those of us who smile all the time are struggling, not complaining, with our isolation, it has lifted us.”

Kings Mill School had a filming session with Will Roberts, and together we tested out how to best work over Teams!  Alongside this, musicians from Remarkable Arts recorded their parts to Seasons Song and the choir’s song Ending of Another Year and shared them with us.

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Final stages

The final stage in the project is pulling all the different video and audio submissions together with the footage from the Sinfonia Viva recording session back in the summer, to make a digital performance. This was premiered online to substantial digital audiences.  

CLICK HERE to hear the rest of the songs produced as part of this project

If you would like to know more about Classically Yours and the broad range of exciting projects they are running, you can find more information CLICK HERE

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Workshop Leader James Redwood
Workshop Leader Sophie Rosa
Workshop Leader David Ayre
Workshop Leader Mark Howley
Film by Will Roberts

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