Primary school pupils to be inspired by free music concerts

4,000 primary school children from the West Midlands will experience the wonder of the Symphony Hall at the Primary Prom on Monday 3 February. The two free concerts, organised by national music charity Music for Youth, give children a chance to enjoy a wide range of musical styles in a concert hall setting. For many it will be their first experience of a live concert.

Accomplished and talented musicians, who are 21 and under and from Birmingham and surrounding areas, will perform at the Music for Youth Primary Prom concerts designed to inspire young audiences to take up music. The performing groups are Soul Patrol from the Robert Smyth Academy, the Jazzlines Ensemble Triofrom Town Hall Symphony Hall; the Birmingham Schools Music Theatre Choir; the Birmingham Junior Conservatoire Chamber Orchestra; and the Abraham Darby Academy Showband from Telford.

Judith Webster, Chief Executive of Music for Youth said: “The Birmingham Primary Prom concerts give thousands of primary aged youngsters the opportunity to experience a range of high quality live music performed in a fabulous concert hall. Seeing their peers on the stage gives the young audience something to aspire to, encouraging them to either take up music for themselves, or go one step further if they have already started.”

Soul Patrol are a talented bunch hailing from the Robert Smyth Academy, a 14-18 mixed academy in Market Harborough. They will perform an original ballad, Stevie Wonder’s Superstition and Sister Sledge’s We Are Family.

 

Jazzlines Ensemble Trio is part of Symphony Hall’s inspirational strand of education work to connect people with jazz music. Sessions led by experienced jazz musicians and educators allow the students to constantly develop their knowledge of the standard jazz repertoire, and learn all their music by ear, helping develop the musicians’ aural skills, which are particularly important in jazz and improvisation.

 

Birmingham Schools Music Theatre Choirsing mainly contemporary music theatre and pop-based numbers. They will perform a rousing gospel themed song guaranteed to get everybody’s feet tapping, a haunting arrangement of the traditional folk song, and the instantly recognisable When I Grow Up from the stage version of Matilda by Tim Minchin.

 

The Abraham Darby Academy Showband has a high reputation within the youth music world. When they are not jet-setting off around the world, they rehearse with the extensive range of junior bands. This 60-piece wind band will perform the well-known opening Carmina Burana, a wind band arrangement of the No.1 hit Skyfall and the exciting finale from the hit stage show Lord of the Dance.

 

Birmingham Junior Conservatoire provides specialist training in the heart of Birmingham for some of the region’s most talented young musicians. Their Chamber Orchestra will be playing the first movement from String Symphony in F major by Felix Mendelssohn. His exceptional composing talent showed from a young age and this piece was written when he was just 13 years old.

 

The concert is part of MFY’s Primary Prom series and follows Primary Prom concerts late last year at the Royal Albert Hall in London and St George’s Hall, Bradford. The next Primary Prom concert will take place on 4 March, 2014 at Hull City Hall.

For more information about the Primary Proms or Music for Youth please contact: