BBC Ten Pieces Champions Projects: The Halle

The Hallé has embedded Ten Pieces within each of it’s three core education programmes. Working with the Manchester and Greater Manchester music hubs, the orchestra has developed a range of projects for AGMA schools.

Hallé for Youth: Schools’ Concerts 2015

The ‘Hallé in The Sun’ concerts will take place at The Bridgewater Hall from 3-6 February 2015. The concert will centre around the sun theme with reference to the science of the sun and how it effects planet Earth – night and day/seasons/places where the sun shines fiercely (deserts) and where it doesn’t (the Arctic). Children will be introduced to the different sections and instruments of the orchestra. The programme will include 2 pieces from the Ten Pieces repertoire: Stravinsky’s Finale from the Firebird – suite and Britten’s Storm Interlude from Peter Grimes. Connected to the performances is a regular schools’ project which circulates around AGMA, two boroughs at a time every year. This year 4 primary schools from Bolton and Rochdale will take part.

Adopt-a-player

Each year the ‘adopt-a-player’ programme takes place across 4 clusters of schools (3 feeder primaries – Yrs 5/6 and 1 high school – Yr 7) from Greater Manchester. For the 2014/15 season there are 2 clusters in Tameside and 1 each in Bury and Manchester. Each class adopts a player from the orchestra to aid the children in their creativity. This year the set pieces that will performed and then inspire the classroom sessions will include two of the Ten Pieces repertoire: Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 and Grieg’s ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ from Peer Gynt.

The project takes place over 5 sessions.

• Firstly, there’s an INSET for teachers to meet the adopted players and to discuss the project.
•  The players are then introduced to the class in school, usually on the morning of the concert at The Bridgewater Hall. When the children arrive at the Hall, they’re met by their adopted players, then they’re introduced to the rest of the audience by the conductor at the beginning of the concert.
• Two  creative music sessions take place in school, during which the Hallé musician helps the students create their own compositions based on a piece performed in the concert. Each school focuses on a different section of the set work, incorporating themes into their new creative piece.
• Finally all 4 classes come together at the high school to share their work and perform a twilight concert to parents and invited guests. For each performance, the 4 adopted players will play three interludes of music, joining the four school projects together – thus creating a continuous piece which can last 20-25 minutes long.

 Come and Play with the Hallé is a unique series of concerts specially designed to offer thousands of children on the First Access Scheme  (previously called  Wider Opportunities) the opportunity to play and sing with an international symphony orchestra.

 In any one concert as many as 1,000 children play, and a further 1,200 sing, with the Hallé. Original and arranged material, specially composed by the Hallé’s Education Director, Steve Pickett, for the professional players and young people to share, is presented alongside orchestral blockbusters, ranging from film scores to famous classics. The children, therefore, experience the power of a symphony orchestra at first hand, as well as being a part of it.

This season’s programme, planned for summer 2015, will be based on a space theme. The concert will feature two of the Ten Pieces: a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 and the opportunity for children to join the orchestra in playing Holst’s Mars from The Planets.