We have again supported the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival in their work with local primary schools, and this year Sam Glazer and Tara Franks led workshops in Rye, Winchelsea, Icklesham, Peasmarsh,  Playden and Beckley. 

Sam and Tara spent a full day with each school in early June accompanied by two members of the Astatine Trio who were performing in the actual Festival.  During these workshops, each group of children wrote the lyrics and music for a new song, using themes from in school, and also learned a song that all the schools would sing together. These songs formed the basis of the final concert. 

Following the workshops, Sam and Tara then supplied each school with materials including a lyrics sheet, and a recording of their newly composed song, to help the teachers support the class learning their song. Sam and another musician then orchestrated the newly composed songs for the Piano Trio.

In the week leading up to the Festival itself each school had a short refresher workshop with the Trio before the final performance in St. Mary’s Church in Rye on the Friday of the Festival at the end of June where the Astatine Trio also played some music from the piano trio repertoire.

This work provides a wonderful opportunity for young children to experience live music and to participate in preparing their own songs.  Here are some quotes from the schools regarding the outcomes these workshops have produced:

When the children first heard the Astatine Trio play the song they’d written, their jaws dropped and one commented that it sounded ‘epic’

Pupils have been more likely to read out to the rest of the class and it has boosted their confidence when singing in whole school assemblies. 

One of our quieter boys has not stopped singing since! His voice is beautiful! 

One of the girls in my class with SEN, who normally struggles with classroom focus and staying on task, engaged amazingly well throughout. She was passionate about her ideas for the song and put her all into the performance.

I hope you will feel that this is an extremely worthy cause for those of us who enjoy “The Arts” when there is little or no live music in our primary schools.

Our Society has again awarded prizes to A-Level and GCSE students at Cranbrook School and Homewood School, and these are much appreciated. It is so good to be able to encourage young artists and to reward their efforts.

We also funded Magic Lantern Art workshops at Rolvenden and Colliers Green Primary Schools.

The day at Rolvenden was much enjoyed by the staff and the children. The children's art work reflecting on what they had learnt on Myths and Legends was on display at their subsequent Art Exhibition.

At Colliers Green, Magic Lantern worked with the children to connect with their Art Week topic of community and collaboration. We are told the children rose magnificently to the challenge and were brimming with opinions and ideas.

We also  continue to support the Peasmarsh Festival’s work with children at local primary schools.

This year the Society has been encouraging young artists at Secondary School by presenting prizes to A-level and GCSE students.

At Homewood School Tenterden, five prizes were awarded to Year 11 students studying Fine Art, Ceramics, Photography, Textiles and Graphics.

At Cranbrook School prizes were awarded to two A-level and two GCSE students of Fine Art.

Magic Lantern Art run workshops in primary schools and bring any topic to life and inspire children to want to learn more. This year the Society paid for 6 sessions at Cranbrook C of E Primary School. The School said afterwards "Thank you for funding such a valuable experience for our children. They loved it as did all of the staff".

See also the article on the primary schools' concert during the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival.

We were delighted to support the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival with their workshops in 6 local primary schools again this year.  Children in years 5 & 6 from Peasmarsh, Beckley, Playden, Winchelsea, Icklesham and Rye each had sessions with Sam Glazer and Tara Franks to compose music and words for a song which they then performed in St Mary's Church in Rye during the Festival at the end of June.

Each school chose a subject to base their song around and the majority of them had been learning about World War II due to the 80th anniversary of VE and VJ falling this year.  Some of the words were incredibly moving and the children had really absorbed the meaning of the horrors of war.  It was an inspiring concert by these very young children.

They were accompanied by Lumas Winds, a group of 5 young wind players who were  performing in the main festival events in Peasmarsh Church, who also played various movements from the wind quintet repertoire to introduce the children to live classical music.

We have once again been pleased to support the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival with their workshops involving five Primary Schools in the Rye area.  This year Sam Glazer and members of the Barbican Quartet worked in each school with children in years 3 to 6 to compose their own song, as well as a song prepared by all 140 children.  

These were performed in St Mary's Church, Rye during the Festival in June, accompanied by the Barbican Quartet, who also played parts of string quartets by Ravel, Haydn and Schumann.  This is music that the majority of those 140 children had never experienced before.

The feedback from the schools and parents was truly gratifying, partlicularly in the case of children who perhaps find academic subjects more challenging.  The confidence that it gave to all these children, to perform in public in front of parents and others, will live with them for years to come.

In April 2024, the Society made a grant to Benenden Primary School to be used in an Arts Programme. This involved each class preparing ceiling panels on a variety of topics to be placed outside their classrooms. The topics ranged from the Fire of London and the wartime Blitz to the works of Joan Miro and David Hockney.  The children also produced mosaic hearts representing “Compassion. ”

In December 2022 we funded an Arts project at Goudhurst Primary School. Under the direction of the Lead Teacher in Arts each of the children, aged 4 - 11 years old, painted their own self-portraits onto 180 tiles which now form a vibrant display on the walls of the School Hall. 

The quallities of enthusiasm, observation and sheer talent are something we hope to encourage in other schools in the future. 

You can see a selection of these wonderful self-portraits here.

We were delighted to be able to contribute again this year to the Workshops led by Sam Glazer in five Primary Schools in the Peasmarsh area. Sam spent a day in each school working with young children on composing and performing music with the renowned Heath Quartet.

75 children from Peasmarsh, Rye and Beckley then performed on Friday 24th June in the beautiful church of St Peter and St Paul in Peasmarsh attended by 74 adults.

Later that day, 60 children from Winchelsea and Icklesham performed in St Thomas's Church in Winchelsea where 56 adults attended.

The majority of these children had never heard live music before. The pleasure and satisfaction that they gained from this experience is wonderful to witness and the feedback has been very positive.  Below is the report from the the Peasmarch Chamber Music Festival

 Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival Education Report 2022 

Background 

The Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival was delighted to offer music workshops in five local schools in June 2022, focusing on composition and song writing. The project culminated in two public performances where participating children were invited to perform their new songs. We have offered education workshops in local schools for over 15 years, initially working with Peasmarsh and Beckley Schools, and expanding to include Rye Primary School, St Thomas’ Winchelsea and Icklesham Primary School in the past two years. 

During 2020 and 2021, like all arts organisations, our work was significantly impacted by the COVID – 19 pandemic and we had to adjust our approach to music education (in 2020 we offered digital workshops to children in two local schools, and in 2021 we returned to in person workshops in five schools but were unable to bring schools together for public performances, instead offering concerts in four schools). It was therefore particularly exciting that we could bring the schools together in 2022 for two culmination performances. In 2022 our education work was led by experienced workshop leader Sam Glazer, working alongside musicians in the Heath Quartet, who had been engaged to perform at the Festival. 

Education activities in 2022 

Our work in 2022 focused primarily on classical music composition workshops in five primary schools in Rother. Each school identified a cohort of around 30 children to participate in their workshop, which was delivered by experienced animateur and workshop leader Sam Glazer, accompanied by a professional musician. The workshops took the form of a full day workshop in school, followed by a part day refresher workshop during the week of the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival. In between these two workshops, materials were provided to the school to enable class teachers to rehearse the songs with their students. These include recordings of the songs for the children to practise with and lyric sheets for the children to learn. 

Each group of children wrote a song (both the lyrics and the music) facilitated by Sam, supported by a professional musician, but working together to create an original new work. In one school, a lower school singing assembly was incorporated into the day long workshop, bringing music to a wider group of students. 

Following the workshops, all five schools' participants were invited to perform at a concert taking place during the Peasmarsh Festival. Three schools performed in Peasmarsh Church, and two in Winchelsea Church. Each performance also featured the Heath String Quartet and classical accordionist James Crabb, all of whom are professional musicians who had been booked to perform during the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival. In this way the children heard works for duo, trio and string quartet and were introduced both to these wonderful string instruments, and to the different sound worlds created by the classical accordion. The Heath Quartet also accompanied the children as they sang, creating a wonderful opportunity for the children to perform with professional musicians. 

The compositions were beautifully constructed, and performed, and it was a pleasure to see these children singing their own compositions and relishing the rightly enthusiastic applause for their fantastic work. 

Project Outcomes 

The key outcomes of our 2022 education work were: 

• • Music composition workshops for up to 135 participating children in Years 3 to 6 
• • Creation of five new works as a result of the workshops 
• • Public performance opportunity for all participating children 
• • Opportunity for parents to attend public performances; a total of 103 individuals took this opportunity up. 
• • We were delighted to include the lower part of Rye School (key stage 1 and years 3 and 4) in an informal choral sharing as part of our daylong workshop. This involved approximately 160 additional children 
• • We issued an invitation to children participating in workshops to attend a public concert during the Festival for free, with significantly subsidised tickets made available to accompanying adults. This offer was taken up by two families. 

Impact on participants 

In most cases, the children participating in the school workshops had not previously had the opportunity to work with professional musicians on composition, neither had they had the opportunity to perform alongside professional musicians. During their workshops the children experimented with both singing and percussion and created their own songs for performance in school at the end of the workshop (or a few days later in some cases). These provided valuable performance experience. 

Participants from all five schools then had the opportunity to perform in public concerts alongside repertoire performed by the award winning Heath Quartet, and classical accordionist James Crabb, who were all in residence at the festival. It was very beneficial for these children to hear performances by a professional string quartet and the inclusion of the accordion opened up a new sound world to the children. 

The opportunity to perform helped build confidence among participants. One school commented that: 

'Children showed great confidence when performing. They knew they had something to work towards and enjoyed the main performance at the church.' and 'Many children who would not normally join in worked well in the group activities and performed in front of an audience.' 

Another school commented that 'The children absolutely loved working with the Quartet and performing. I wanted to particularly comment on how much our special needs children got from this experience; the musicians got the most from all pupils but some of our SENs blossomed!' 

It is particularly heartening to learn that our work benefited children with special educational needs. 

In their feedback, Winchelsea school commented that 'there were a couple of boys especially who offered contributions to the composition that were more sensitive and thoughtful than I would probably have expected of them'. This suggests that the workshops not only offered the participants an experience and opportunity to participate in a way that they would not have been possible in a regular school environment, but also that the teachers' eyes were opened to the potential and skill of these boys in particular. 

This is backed up by comments from Beckley School that 'the experience allowed different aspects of the class personality to shine through.' 

We have found over the years that our inclusive approach to our work enables children who do not always shine in the classroom to participate fully in the music workshops. 

Financial outcome 

We are very grateful to the funders of our education work in 2022: Sussex Community Foundation, Arts Society High Weald, Rother District Council and the Rudi Martinus van Dijk Foundation. Our grants were primarily spent on artistic costs of delivering our education work. Income 

Grant income £5,600.00 

Expenditure 

Project leader planning / orchestration    £600.00 

Workshop fees (project leader and musicians) £2,700.00 

Concert fees (project leader and musicians)  £1,350.00 

Project Administration     £360.00 

Venue hire     £70.00 

Artists transport costs £211.90 

Overheads/general manager costs £550.00 

TOTAL  £5,841.90 

In July 2021 we were again able to fund Music Workshops in five Primary Schools: Peasmarsh, Beckley, Rye, Winchelsea and Icklesham

Because of Covid the shcools were not able to hold a joint concert but instead held a concert in each school under Sam Glazer accomapnied by the Barbican String Quartet.