East Ayrshire Council reports that it has won a prestigious prize in this year’s National Music Council Local Authority Music Education Awards for its high-quality music provision to young people in schools.

http://www.east-ayrshire.gov.uk/corpres/news/showNews.asp?p=3066

The Major Trophy was jointly awarded to East Ayrshire and Devon.

Drake Music Scotland is one of only twenty organisations in the UK to be chosen to commission a piece of music for New Music 20×12 which will feature centre stage at the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

Included in the list announced on Friday by PRS for Music Foundation (see below), Drake Music Scotland has commissioned composer Oliver Searle to write ‘Technophonia’ which will be scored for a new kind of ensemble that brings together cutting edge music interfaces.  Oliver Searle’s music will inspire the young musicians to combine their individual talents to achieve a unique team performance, which will challenge how the audience defines musical instruments and performing musicians.

Read full story http://drakemusicscotland.org/new-music-20-x-12/

Last week, Glasgow City Hall’s Old Fruitmarket venue was packed with teachers, educators, musicians and policy makers wanting to find out more about Figurenotes, a simple music notation system that uses colours and symbols instead of notes.

The Figurenotes conference was organized by Drake Music Scotland, the Scottish partner in an international network of music educators using Figurenotes to make music making accessible to a range of user groups including SEN music, Early Years and those with Autistic Spectrum disorder.

‘Making music should be a basic human right – Figurenotes is helping to place the joy and delight of making music in reach of all.’

Markku Kaikkonen and Kaarlo Uusitalo, Figurenotes creators

Presentations from inspiring teachers like Annona Thornton from Lilybank school, made evident the powerful impact the system has for children and young people – they find it easy to use and can quickly achieve and make progress, which in turn helps build confidence, motivation and communication skills. Figurenotes not only supports one to one teaching, it also allows differentiation within shared group activity.

Drake has been trialling Figurenotes Software with 40 people, and is using their feedback to develop the software before rolling it out nationally to Scotland’s music educators in 2011. Information on the software and a Figurenotes Resource pack will be available early next term.

In the iCompose session, Conference delegates had an opportunity to try out Figurenotes, creating short compositions which were played back to them by professional musicians from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Drake Music Scotland is working in partnership with Scottish Chamber Orchestra on the iCompose competition, which this year includes a Special Needs Category. For more information on the competition and how to enter visit www.icompose.org

Drake Music Scotland is one of ten Scottish arts organisations awarded funding to deliver a Co-Create project for Glow.

A new online resource that brings together a diverse collection of traditional songs and music from across Scotland. Click here to visit the site.

You can learn about traditional songs and music, understand themes in Scottish music and find out more about Scotland’s instruments, like the bagpipes and the clarsach.
There’s a short introduction to each song or tune, along with song lyrics and the musical notation for almost every tune.