LDSM reaches out
Lake District Summer Music is well known for the annual International Festival and Summer School it promotes each August. But what is less well known is the work it does with schools and in rural communities at other times during the year.
Thus Lake District Summer Music found itself, rather curiously given its name, promoting its first festival of culturally diverse music in Ulverston (outside the Lake District) last Autumn. Called Music from a Foreign Land, this was a celebration of Asian music and musicians built in partnership with key funders, schools and performers.
As with all of LDSM's work, education is key and over 2 days LDSM worked with some 752 young musicians in 5 schools across the county and offered complimentary tickets to several other schools for the Festival.
Beijing Opera brought a magical colour to the opening of the Festival on Thursday 18 November with a mixture of traditional Chinese opera theatre and instrumentals. On the Saturday, LDSM secured a coup with the South Asian Music Youth Orchestra (SAMYO) and Tarang (Milapfest's exciting new professional ensemble) on the same stage together for the first time. But the Festival was not just about Eastern Music. Ireland, Shostakovich and Brahms featured too ... performed by the Emperor Piano Trio - three exceptionally talented young musicians from Japan, Korea and Japan. And in the midst of all this, Indigo Moon Theatre were performing their mix of Indonesian puppetry and music with primary school children from Sir John Barrow School.
Andrew Lucas, LDSM's Executive Organiser, was invited to give a talk at 'Reflecting Change' a conference on Cultural Diversity organised by Arts Council England North West in partnership with Arts About Manchester and TEAM. You read this talk
We are always on the look out for new locations and organisations to work with. These don't have to be schools - perhaps you have a small venue and would like some help in putting on a concert by one of the many talented young ensembles we can secure for you, or maybe we can help you out with box office facilities for an event you are running. Whatever your needs, please don;t hesitate to discuss them with us. Drop us a line at outreach@ldsm.org.uk
For details of the '4x4' Composer's Project we ran in 1999 click here. Watch out for news of the second composer commissioned from this innovative project in the 2004 festival.
