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What can you do with kids who have been learning a musical instrument for less than a year and can only play half a dozen notes? Well, not a lot obviously, keep drumming the basics of reading music into them and give them some simple tunes such as nursery rhymes to master right? Wrong! And wrong in gloriously spectacular fashion, as proved by the pioneering brilliance of Francesca Matthews and Paul Christmas.
Responding to the recent government edict that every child should have the chance to learn a musical instrument, they, together with schools across the country combined in a project called 'Perform!' - a chance not just to play together, but to play in something significant and worthwhile. Performers, arrangers and educators Francesca and Paul came up with a 45 minute piece combining South African township melodies with Indian Ragas, Salsa, Reggae, Thomas Tallis' Kyrie Eleison, Bluesy Jazz standard 'Walkin' and culminating in Earth Wind and Fire's 'Fantasy'.
None of this is simple music, complex melodic syncopations, switching from one feel to another and concentrating in front of a large audience in the Nottingham Arena, a huge ask for the 600 (yes, six hundred!) young musicians involved. I was part of the pro band that was assembled to back the whole enterprise, and what a privilege it was. The kids were extraordinary, superhuman patience, concentration, discipline and nerve-holding in pulling off this amazing undertaking with such aplomb. It was hugely inspirational for all of us to know that the future of music and musical education in this country is in such safe and brilliantly creative hands!
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