Arts Development

Urban Orchestra

Project overview

A year long project with young orchestral musicians and young urban musicians culminating in the creation and performance of a major new piece of music.

Participants

Young people aged between 11 and 18

Creative practitioners/Artists

Gavin Lombos

Russ Alsop

Phil Hopkins

Fa Fa Jin

John Watts

Partners and funders

Readipop www.readipop.co.uk

Berkshire Maestros www.berkshiremaestros.org.uk

Reading Borough Council

Whitley Excellence Cluster www.whitleyexcellencecluster.org.uk

Youth Music www.youthmusic.org.uk

Highdown School

Blessed Hugh Faringdon School

John Madejski Academy

Description

Urban Orchestra was conceived by Readipop in response to their work with Reading’s young producers and MCs who often use orchestral samples in their music. Working in partnership with Reading Borough Council and Berkshire Maestros the aim of the project was to develop a collaboration between young people who have very different musical interests, and through that process to devise and perform a high quality original piece of music.

During the 2006 spring and summer terms young people took part in a series of workshops run by musicians from Readipop and Berkshire Maestros. The workshops covered instrumental improvisation, music technology, Djing, developing graphic scores and devising themes for the final composition. A week of intensive creative activity took place in October 2006 when the young people came together to devise and compose the piece. This is where the real collaboration took place, with the bringing together of themes, section rehearsals, scoring and recording.

The premiere of “Any Given Saturday…..(a typical teenage Saturday in Reading)”  took place at The Hexagon on 28^th November 2006 before an audience of over 600 people.

The piece has been described as an urban tone poem, conveying responses to people, places and events using musical themes and motifs. Alongside the orchestral and other instruments the piece includes a soundscape created from recordings made in Reading and electronic sound effects. AF Harrold, reviewing the piece for BBC Berkshire, described it as follows:

“The three movements begin with morning, where the orchestra mixes standard dawn motifs and lyrical passages of waking, dozing, sleeping late with the musique concrète of birdsong, street noise, alarm clocks, mobile phones. The weaving together of the real and the ideal works well, is bright, witty and intelligent and is clearly a step beyond being a gimmick, which is a trap it could’ve easily stepped into.

The second movement, the afternoon, begins with a bus ride into town, on which the first vocals appear – actual singing, mixed with spoken snatches of conversation, making the passage sound something like an interesting version of The Streets.

The final movement, which takes in the evening and the trip home, begins in the Forbury Gardens, evoked by a magisterial arrangement of Sumer Is Icumen In, this is overtaken and embraced by the electronic drums and we’re treated to some Mcing, which set over a melody and backed by the orchestra and given a context is remarkably fitting and more successful than I might have expected. Eventually a driving rhythmic heart-pounding climax is reached late at night, avoiding trouble, fights, and rather sadly, though not, perhaps, atypically, the piece ends with a police siren dopplering into earshot.

What is so remarkable about this very enjoyable piece is how, according to the credits that roll on the screen (which has, incidentally, been display still images to coincide with the programmatic nature of the score), it has been composed, arranged and performed by students and teachers from Highdown and Blessed Hugh Faringdon schools, the John Madjeski Academy, musicians from Berkshire Maestros and ‘Reading’s most open-minded young urban MCs’ – and yet, never for one moment does it seem a compromise has had to be reached about any aspect of it – it feels consistently dynamic, and unified both in aim and in content. To get so many people involved and to not end up with a beige blandish lump is a remarkable achievement for all involved – and the fact that it was a fascinating, witty and moving piece as well speaks well for Reading’s musical future on all fronts.”

A free DVD of the project and final performance is available from info@readipop.co.uk