Education ViVA

Journeys
Monday 30th January 2006
Assembly Rooms, Derby

The culmination concert of the eleventh ViVA Spring Residency in Derby will take place at the Assembly Rooms on Monday 30th January 2006 at 7.00pm. The project takes the theme of Journeys and includes both music and film elements.

During December 2005, young people from the University of Derby and St. Benedict's Catholic School took part in creative film workshops based on the theme of 'Journeys'. The workshops were led by Phil Higgins from Derby based Katapult Studios and composer and music workshop leader Andrew Williams. During the workshops the young people developed their skills in the film creation process. This involved manipulating short film clips in a variety of ways and creating their own film sequences depicting journeys.

"I think it's really good that young people get to do something they like doing." - Participant

The first strand of activity has involved media studies students at St. Benedict's Catholic School working in pairs to develop a series of film clips which take the viewer on a journey. Students from the University of Derby have also created a bank of short film clips with sounds which they will be triggering live during the performance. Accompanying the film clips, ViVA musicians will perform music specially composed by Andrew Williams.

"All participants benefited [in terms of confidence and self esteem]. A good example was the attitude, posture and presence of the primary school children during the performance. They seemed to have grown an inch and were all looking considerably more confident than at the outset of the project." - Workshop Leader

Andrew is excited by the different challenges presented to participants and the fresh ways in which their thinking and creativity has been stimulated as a result, commenting: "The University students have been given a complete insight into a different way of using film. Their challenge was to become musicians in the way they thought about film. They needed to approach it from a completely different angle - seeing film as an instrument. Alongside this, the students at St. Benedict's School have had their first real experience of editing film together. I have been very impressed with the way the students have approached the task - they have succeeded in making narrative out of abstract images, and they have done so with great concentration and effort."

"We've had a laugh. It's not been like hard work!" - Participant

Throughout January, Andrew and six ViVA musicians will be working in Sinfin Primary School, Sinfin Community School and Derby College to create music to perform alongside the films created by students from St. Benedict's Catholic School. The culmination concert at the Assembly Rooms will include performances of Britten's Night Mail and Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale. The opportunity for students and ViVA musicians to explore together the complex juxtaposition between film and the reflective, interpretive use of music is one that Andrew Williams finds absorbing. "I am fascinated by the link between images and related sounds and am really excited about the ViVA: Journeys project which will push the boundaries of how these two media work together alongside classical and contemporary music."

"Working together is the best thing of all and I enjoyed working with you very much - thank you." - Participant

Nick Dunmur from the University of Derby adds: "We are delighted to be involved in this project as, firstly, it gives our students a taste for the commercial working environment - working to a tight brief and to short timescales with a range of different people. It is also very artistically challenging and gives a different perspective to the work the students are set outside the artistic boundaries."

"I learned how to use improvisation to come up with simple ideas to use in the piece." - Participant

These are sentiments with which ViVA's Education Manager Marianne Quintrell readily concurs, adding: "The Spring Residency traditionally involves young people from primary to sixth form age in a music making project enabling them to perform alongside professional musicians. ViVA: Journeys, however, introduces the creativity around image and sound which adds an exciting new element to the young people's work and experiences and is our most challenging project yet."

"We turned something simple into something extraordinary." - Participant

Images from the project...