Education ViVA

Fever: The Animal Kingdom
Derby Royal Hospital, Nottingham Children's Centre; Rainbows Children's Hospice, Loughborough and Leicester Royal Infirmary
3–4 August 2009

The latest phase of the Fever project took place on 3 and 4 August 2009 at Nottingham Children's Centre, Rainbows Children's Hospice, Loughborough and children's wards at Leicester Royal Infirmary and Derby Royal Hospital.

"The children spend long periods in hospital so its great to get the opportunity to do new and exciting activities. It helps pass time and music has a very relaxing effect." - (Staff member – Leicester Royal Infirmary)

The theme of the sessions, which each lasted for an hour, was The Animal Kingdom which meant that the children could get creative beforehand and develop artwork, props and costumes to bring to the session. ViVA brought a range of colourful animal masks which were handed out to much excitement!

"The children enjoyed the session as it was centred around animal sounds and tunes, or tunes they recognised." - (Staff)

"The children are still singing the dog song!" - (Staff member – Leicester Royal Infirmary)

Lucy Forde led the interactive workshop sessions which saw ViVA musicians Clare Bhabra (violin) and Matt Dunn (clarinet) perform a range of duets and trios for the children.

"I liked the drums because they make lots of noise." - (Participant)

The children and their carers were then able to experience playing percussion instruments and using their voices to create a short piece centered around the theme of The Animal Kingdom. The sessions in each of the venues culminated in a performance of the piece created during the workshop.

"The young man I was caring for participated fully in the activity. It was age appropriate and he particularly enjoyed being the conductor." - (Carer - Rainbows Children's Hospice)

sinfonia ViVA hopes to arrange another set of workshops in the venues before the end of the year.

"One of the children really enjoyed being the conductor even though he had no means of communication apart from his computer." - (Musician)

This project has been generously supported by John Lewis, Arts & Business, Hickinbotham Charitable Trust, Melton Mowbray Building Society, JR Corah Charitable Trust and TS Shipman Trust.