The Purcell School’s IMPULSE Outreach trip to June 21-24th 2018

Generously sponsored by The Arts Society of North West Norfolk The Yorke Trust John and Jean Schofield

Since 2004, groups of talented, caring young musicians from the Purcell School’s IMPULSE Outreach Group have visited North West Norfolk annually to run outreach workshops in primary schools, and community concerts in Norfolk’s beautiful churches.

IMPULSE is the name of the Purcell School’s unique, pupil-led outreach programme and the young musicians take an active role in planning and organising all aspects of their four-day tour. It takes place after their school examinations finish and gives them valuable music leadership training as well as being highly beneficial and inspirational for those who work with them and attend their performances.

The workshop programme in primary schools would definitely not have been able to happen without the amazing support from The Arts Society of North West Norfolk.

Everyone is so grateful to the Arts Society, and thanks them warmly.

The concert programmes in community churches are sponsored by John and Jean Schofield, anonymous donors and by the church communities themselves. Between them, all these wonderful people in make it possible for the young Purcell School musicians to come and visit each year. This tour is one of our flagship projects at the Purcell School.

Thursday June 21st

Fourteen young musicians and two staff members (Alison Cox and Ziggi Szafranski) set off early from The Purcell School in a minibus. They were also accompanied by Martin Wess, whose white transit van transforms into the instrument/luggage van for four days!

This picture shows Martin Wess, who has supported the IMPULSE Outreach visits to Norfolk since 2004, using his white transit van to transport all the luggage and instruments. The van is personalised during the project with magnetic stick-on posters, advertising IMPULSE and the Purcell School.

Our first port of call was All Saints CEVA Primary School, , where the IMPULSE musicians received a very warm welcome from the Head Teacher and all the children. They ran musical projects with the children at Stibbard throughout the afternoon, and also presented a musicial assembly to the whole school.

A interactive musical assembly for the whole school!

When we first met the class of 30 children, Abbie led the warmups. She created some lively rhythmic and singing games and, supported by the rest of the IMPULSE group, encouraged the children to imitate her, using ‘call and response’! Josh kept up a strong rhythmic pulse on the djembe (African drum) throughout the warmups.

Abbie is a young musician with great talent for outreach work, and this was her special area of responsibility throughout the tour. After the warmups, she split the rest of the musicians into instrumental groups, and gave them each a group of children to work with. Here are Abbie’s instructions to her friends…… “We shall split 30 children into instrument groups. Lots of them play violin and piano.Try and give the children as much 1 on 1 time as possible and in your groups have something prepared for them to play or use or try and make something with them”.

Kasparus demonstrated the piano to a small group of children

The children were absolutely fascinated. Kasparus played duets with each one in turn, giving them simple parts whilst he played difficult accomaniments with them. The school piano was well-known to the children and they were thrilled when Kasparas made it sound fantastic!

Young beginner violinists had great fun outside in the beautiful sunny weather learning to play a new piece together with IMPULSE violinists Yasmin, Abbie and Natalya. Indoors, Cherry showed some other children how to play the harp which was a very popular option indeed! Young guitarists from Stibbard were very happy to work with the IMPULSE guitarist Billy, who is already making a name for himself, has his own website and seemed to be able to play almost ANY piece of music on the guitar! Billy told the children all sorts of amazing things about the instrument and everyone said that they really enjoyed working with him. Billy said that in his opinion there were definitely some promising guitarists at Stibbard!

Also outside in the school playing field, young percussionists were learning how to create new rhythms and sounds with Cody, Jack and Josh.This was another very popular option and the children all understood very quickly how to work in an ensemble and keep a strong, steady pulse.

Creating African-like rhythms on a djembe, led by Cody, Jack and Josh (above) and having a lot of fun using call and response techniques to invent dances (below)

After this lovely workshop at All Saints, Stibbard we packed up and drove to our base, the Yorke Trust at South Creake. This is an ideal accommodation/rehearsal venue, run by Rodney Slatford OBE, former Head of Strings at the Royal Northern College of Music. Rodney always works closely with us each year to make the venue realistically affordable for our IMPULSE group. We greatly appreciate his generosity!

Friday June 22nd

This was a very busy day indeed for the IMPULSE group. The young musicians were not only scheduled to run workshops with four different schools in a single day, but were also due to perform in a Community Concert in Thursford in the evening! However, the group was well prepared for all this. After an early breakfast, we all set off from the Yorke Trust and made our way to Junior School, where we were due to give an ‘Interactive Assembly’ to the whole school.

On arrival, we were warmly greeted by the Headteacher, Mr Adam Mason, who was very enthusiastic indeed about our visit, and spoke to the children about the value of music education very eloquently at the end of our performance.

The interactive assembly was created by Ellen and Abbie, and ran as follows … • Cody played jazz piano as the children arrived • Abbie welcomed the children and introduced the Purcell School • Cherry then played ‘Greensleeves’ to them on the harp • After this, Emily and Kelly sang the ‘Cat Duet’ • A string quartet then played a Tango, composed by Natalya • Billy then performed ‘Cryptic’ on the guitar • The whole group performed Cody’s arrangement of ‘The Lion King’ • Ellen then thanked everybody and brought the assembly to an end • Cody played jazz piano again as the children left the hall and went (reluctantly) back to their lessons.

Many of the Fakenham children wanted to stay behind afterwards to speak to the young musicians, and this was allowed by their teachers.

After this, the IMPULSE group packed up again and drove to Docking, where they spent the rest of the day working with children from three primary schools – Docking, Brancaster and Sedgeford, al members of the St Mary’s Federation.

IMPULSE ran a number of varied, exciting workshops with all the children from Sedgeford and Brancaster, the two visiting schools, plus a large number of the pupils from Docking. Also, they presented another interactive musical assembly to the whole school, plus all the visiting teachers and children. All this had been carefully planned and organised by the Purcell School pupils in advance – but at the same time, they had to ‘think on their feet’ and adapt the work to the immediate needs of the children. This was a considerable challenge for them, which they tackled wholeheartedly and enthusiastically.

Sponsors, friends and governors from all schools often turned up to watch the interactive assemblies!

Because the weather on this day was warm and pleasant, some members of IMPULSE (those working with drummers, singers and conductors) took their projects outside, and worked in Docking Primary School’s attractive playground – just as they did in Stibbard. Others worked indoors.

Although the IMPULSE programme can be delivered at any time of year, in any weather conditions, it is enormously helpful when we are able to utilize outside spaces.

This was an exhausting day for the Purcell School’s IMPULSE group. However, even towards the end of the school day, when they were genuinely pushing themselves hard to maintain their energy and focus, at no time did they lose their smiles, nor their determination to make the Norfolk schoolchildren feel valued and supported and inspired by music.

It is often hard to remember that the young Purcell School musicians are still only 16-17 years old. Throughout the whole trip, they behaved like true professionals and we were very proud of them. Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday June 22 – 24th

The Community Concerts, which begin as soon as the school outreach projects finish are the other aspect of the Purcell School’s IMPULSE Outreach Trip to Norfolk.

The concerts give us a chance to thank our sponsors and supporters properly. There are three concerts altogether at St Andrews, Thursford, Christ Church, and All Saints, Bale. Each of these concerts are supported by generous individuals in the community.

Alison Cox thanking the sponsors, patrons, friends and audiences at the end of the Community Concert at Fulmodeston.

She is describing to them how the outreach projects took place with primary school children from Stibbard, Fakenham, Docking, Brancaster and Sedgeford.

Alison also explained to people in the audience how IMPULSE is organised and funded, in the hope that others may wish to help support the programme in future.

Each concert is also programmed and directed by one of the IMPULSE musicians! The 2018 Concerts • Thursford’s concert was directed by Cherry, the harpist • Fulmodestone’s concert was run by Ka Youn (Kelly) the composer and singer • Bale’s concert was run by Billy, the guitarist.

IMPULSE MUSICAL OUTREACH TRAINING FOR YOUNG MUSICIANS

JUNE 21-24th 2018

NORTH NORFOLK

Documentation by Alison Cox OBE Head of Composition Outreach Creative Director The Purcell School for Young Musicians www.purcell-school.org