Starcatchers latest newsletter includes news of an interesting early learning and classical music project alongside the RSNO:
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Category Archives: Expressive Arts
BP Portrait Award: Experimental Drawing
National Portrait Gallery
Friday 27 February 1pm – 4pm
Target audience: teachers of all ages and stages welcome
Be inspired by the BP Portrait Award 2014 exhibition. Led by practising artists, Fraser Gray & BP Portrait Award winner Gareth Reid, this session includes a guided tour of the exhibition and a practical drawing session. Analyse artists’ processes, discuss the exhibition, ideas for the classroom and experiment with media and techniques, drawing from a life model. All materials provided.
Venue: Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Queen St, Edinburgh EH2 1JD
To book please contact education@nationalgalleries.org 0131 624 6547
What Is Creativity? – CPD
National Galleries of Scotland
Tuesday 24 Feb 4.30pm – 6pm OR Saturday 7 March 11am – 12.30pm
Target audience: teachers and artist educators of all subjects and stages welcome
What do we really mean by ‘creativity’? How can we encourage learners to develop their creativity skills, through different subject areas across the curriculum?
Delivered in partnership by Arts & Creative Learning, City of Edinburgh Council and the National Galleries of Scotland.
Venue: Scottish National Gallery, The Mound, Edinburgh EH2 2EL
To book contact education@nationalgalleries.org 0131 624 6547
Notes from Scotland – composition competition
A new national composition competition for 12 – 18 year olds from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and National Trust for Scotland.
“This is a fantastic idea to engage young people in composition and to bring them together with existing composers and musicians to pass on their knowledge and skills. I’m sure it will be an invaluable experience for all concerned.”
Craig Armstrong, Composer (The Great Gatsby, Romeo +Juliet, Moulin Rouge)
Get your entries in now for feedback from Scotland’s most famous composers.
Compositions should be for trio, quartet or quintet with any combination of Orchestral instruments allowed. As a guide, we have recommended each piece to be roughly 2 – 3 minutes long, but this is just a suggestion, and the final length of the piece is up to the entrant, within reason. Your five movement symphony can wait!
Any submissions will be considered works in progress until the deadline date of May 31st and can be replaced at any point before that date. These work-in-progress submissions will then be shown to one of the professionals involved with the project for comment. This is an excellent and rare opportunity to get feedback on your music from one of Scotland’s eminent composers. Submissions can also be in various formats: sheet music, as PDF or Sibelius / Finale / Notion project file; audio recording of a piece of music; Figure notes sheet music file.
We’ve now held workshops at three out of the five properties involved in the project, with two more scheduled in the run up to the submission deadline.
Glasgow /w composer Stuart McCrae – January 25th, Pollok House, 2pm – 4pm
Edinburgh /w composer Matilda Brown – March 7th, Georgian House, 2pm – 4pm
Of course, you don’t need to have been at a workshop to enter, we have a whole host of tips from Scotland’s composers and introductions to each of the NTS properties involved in the project up on the Notes from Scotland site: www.notesfromscotland.co.uk <http://www.notesfromscotland.co.uk/>
To come along to one of the workshops, or for any enquiries about the competition in general, please email neil.cullen@rsno.org.uk.
Tesco Bank Art Competition for Schools 2015
This year there are even more reasons to enter with 85 ways to win!
- 53 great prizes of art materials for winners with their work displayed at the Scottish National Gallery
- £100 vouchers for art materials to 20 schools as a thank you for entering
- Free artist-led workshops with help towards transport costs included for 12 lucky schools
With fun, inspiring themes for nursery, lower and upper primary, secondary and special education schools we hope you enjoy looking at, talking about and finally making your own art. You can download each of the categories separately. All winning artworks will be framed and exhibited at the Scottish National Gallery with a selection featured in a colourful calendar posted to every school in Scotland.
Full details can be found at www.nationalgalleries.org/schoolartcompetition
Fringe Schools Poster Competition 2015
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the largest arts festival in the world and takes place every August for three weeks in Scotland’s capital city.
Every year thousands of performers take to a multitude of stages all over Edinburgh to present shows for every taste. The festival includes theatre, comedy, dance, physical theatre, musicals, operas, music, cabaret, exhibitions and events, as well as a huge range of fun shows for children, from magic and comedy to interactive theatre and storytelling.
Our annual Schools Poster Competition is the perfect opportunity for schools to get involved with the Fringe, and for budding young artists and designers to be part of the festival. Each year, we ask school children from across Scotland to design a poster that captures their interpretation of the Fringe, and the winning design becomes the official poster for that year’s festival, as well as being featured on a range of merchandise and in an exhibition alongside other shortlisted entries.
Deadline for entries this year is 6th March 2015 at 5pm
For more information or to download an entry pack, please visit www.edfringe.com/poster.
RSNO Teddy Bears Easter Picnic (CfE Level E – 1)
RSNO Teddy Bears Easter Picnic (CfE Level E – 1)
If you go down to the woods today…you might spot an RSNO musician or two!
The Easter Bunny is looking for the Teddy Bears Picnic but can’t find it anywhere! With a little help from her friends at the RSNO, she’ll take us on a journey of musical discovery.
Join the full orchestra and actress Claire Knight for an interactive and fun concert for early years.
Don’t forget your teddy bear!
Duration: 30 minutes
Cost: £3 per pupil; staff free
Location: Henry Wood Hall, 73 Claremont Street, Glasgow, G3 7JB
Dates and times:
Tuesday 31 March 2015, 10am, 11.30am and 1.30pm
Wednesday 1 April 2015, 10am, 11.30am and 1.30pm
Thursday 2 April 2015, 10am, 11.30am and 3pm (family concert)
CPD – Practical Ideas for Music-Making with Early Years (CfE Level E – 1)
Edinburgh: Friday 6 February 2015, 12.30-2.30pm, Usher Hall
Glasgow: Monday 9 February 2015, 12.30-2.30pm at Henry Wood Hall
Dundee: Thursday 12 February 2015, 12.30-2.30pm, Marryat Hall
Perth: Thursday 5 March 2015, 12.30-2.30pm, Perth Concert Hall
The CPD sessions cost £20 per person and include a resource pack and ticket to an RSNO concert.
To book, please contact The RSNO Engage team at engage@rsno.org.uk or on 0141 225 3552.
RSNO Takeover 2015
‘I thought it was a fantastic few days and I learnt so much…I would recommend it to anyone!’
16-year-old participant in Takeover 2014
The RSNO Takeover is a two-day intensive work experience, open to 16 to 18 year olds interested in a career in the arts or creative industries, regardless of whether you play a musical instrument or not.
We’ll select 50 young people to work in various departments of the Orchestra to produce a public concert at the end of the two-day event. Opportunities will exist in arts marketing, press and PR, development (fundraising), learning and engagement, conducting and performing as a musician.
There are still a few places remaining for 2015.
For more information on the types of roles within the RSNO, please see our Careers Booklet online here.
The opportunity is free, but students must be available to spend two full days in Glasgow at the home of the RSNO, on Monday 15 and Tuesday 16 June 2015.
Accommodation is available for those who do not live in the city – please make a note of this if required on the application form. Closing date for applications is Friday 9 January 2015. Successful applicants will then be invited to attend an interview in Glasgow.
To apply, download an application form here and send it to engage@rsno.org.uk with Takeover 2015 as the subject header.
For more information please call us on 0141 225 3552 or go to http://www.rsno.org.uk/youth/workexperience.php
RSNO Takeover 2014 has been shortlisted for the Best Classical Music Education Initiative Award at the 2015 Music Teacher Awards for Excellence.
Project Raintown – music, technology and health and wellbeing
Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) is engaging with schools and teachers to co-create digital applications with the theme of music for wellbeing throughout the lifespan, building on the success of last years’ award-winning Gaming for Glasgow project.
Bailie Gerald Leonard, Depute Lord Provost, attended today’s launch of ‘Project Raintown’ which will focus on digital app development for health and wellbeing in the classroom and wider world, engaging each of the 10 Learning Communities in Glasgow’s East End.
Supported by the Celtic FC Foundation, the project focuses on compiling playlists and producing apps in collaboration with experts across the UK around the concept of music and health with a community value, and seeks to make a meaningful difference to young people’s aspirations for employment and further education.
These opportunities will be made available to benefit both GCU students and school pupils through expert mentoring, workshops and volunteering opportunities.
Glasgow’s Lord Provost Sadie Docherty said: “I’d like to thank everyone involved with Project Raintown. Understanding technology is the future for our children and collaborations like this with Glasgow Caledonian University and partners is a really exciting way to engage young people in a meaningful way in subjects that really interest them – music and technology. I wish all the teams the very best of success and look forward to hearing about their progress.”
The project is also being supported by Stewart Henderson, Chair of Scottish Music Industry Association and Head of Chemikal Underground Records, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the RSNO, who will also be represented at the first workshop.
The project is being led by Dr Gianna Cassidy, Music Psychologist and Trustee of Playlist for Life charity, and Dr Morag Ferguson, Assistant Head of Strategy for Learning and Digital Futures, both from the School of Engineering and Built Environment.
In the first activity on Wednesday, November 19, staff and students from GCU are providing an app development workshop with children to kick start the programme of activities and generate initial music app concepts for the programme of work and will provide a CPD workshop on app for respective teachers from each school.
Future workshops will support the schools in learning the basics of app building and development and prototyping.
The GCU team recently presented to Scottish Universities’ cross-party group at the Scottish Parliament, having been awarded a Game Changer Award for excellence in learning and teaching for Gaming for Glasgow.
The initiative saw more than 200 GCU students work with pupils from nine Glasgow schools to develop digital games.
Creative Conversations in Edinburgh – Wednesday 26th November
As well as the ‘big’ Creative Conversations Edinburgh City Council are also planning a number of Creative Conversations that take as the stimulus for conversation, a piece of creative work. We first tried this in February with a drama performance by award winning children’s theatre company Catherine Wheels. Not just drama teachers but many people from different backgrounds attended. The animated conversation that followed was testimony to the potential for art to influence learning across all curriculum areas. The feedback was excellent.
Date for your diary:
The next of this type of Creative Conversation is on Wednesday 26th November starting with coffee at 4pm for 4.30 with wine and nibbles at around 5.30. The stimulus for discussion is The Heavenly View which is a dance piece first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe this year and based upon Mahler’s 4th Symphony. The choreography was inspired by the voices and ideas of children in Edinburgh primary schools: Canal View, Hillwood, Ratho and Gylemuir. The approach was unconventional in that the starting point was the learners’ ideas, from which the piece was choreographed. Responses to the work will be shared from the primary schools including poetry and visual art as well as the chance to explore the interdisciplinary and creative learning opportunities arising experiences from an arts stimulus.
The costume designs by Edinburgh College of Art 2014 graduates, Emily Beaney and Kate Hamilton, also took their inspiration from the pupils ideas. The dancers include current and alumni students from the MSc Dance Science and Education and the Advanced Training Programme at Morningside Dance Academy.
Please get back to carla.hay@edinburgh.gov.uk directly if you would like to attend and she’ll send full venue details and confirmation of your place.
Creative Conversations are for Edinburgh, Midlothian and East Lothian and we are happy for non-Edinburgh/Lothian folk to come if we have space.
