Education ViVA

Time Stands Still
Lincoln Drill Hall
7 December 2010

"Really appreciated everything that you brought to our school – it was simply phenomenal! " - Headteacher, Nettleham Junior School

On Tuesday 7 December 2010 young people from Lincoln joined sinfonia ViVA at Lincoln Drill Hall to give a performance to friends, family and the general public. This concert was the culmination of Time Stands Still, a creative music and art project involving pupils from Monks Abbey Primary School and Nettleham Junior School and students from Lincoln College. The participants worked with Claire Thompson and Helen Fletcher from the Usher Gallery on the creative art aspect of the project and composer and workshop leader James Redwood and ViVA musicians Adam Mackenzie (bassoon) and Matthew Dunn (clarinet) worked with the young people to create new music during the project. Time Stands Still was delivered in partnership with Lincoln Drill Hall, the Usher Gallery and sinfonia ViVA.

"It was great fun at the Usher Gallery and Drill Hall. I felt good going somewhere I’ve never been before and meeting new people." - Participant, Nettleham Junior School

The project was themed around time and clocks and started with an inspiration day held at the Drill Hall and Usher Gallery in November 2010. During this day the participants took part in three different workshops: art, music and song writing. The art workshop was led by Claire and Helen from the Usher Gallery and the young people looked at the clocks on display in the gallery creating observational drawings of them. The music workshop was led by Adam and Matthew and the song writing workshop was led by James and the participants used the paintings in The Collection as inspiration when creating the stories of their songs.

"Having the chance to draw what we saw at the Usher Gallery and gain inspiration from pieces of art was a brilliant idea and I enjoyed this a lot." - Participant, Lincoln College

Following on from the inspiration day each of the participating groups had a series of creative art and music workshops at their schools which ran simultaneously to each other. In the art workshops the young people developed the drawings that they had made at the inspiration day by creating block prints and three-dimensional models of clocks and their parts.

"I have learnt new ways of printing art and learnt how beautiful clocks can be." - Participant, Nettleham Junior School

In the creative music sessions led by James with Adam and Matthew the young people created songs inspired by the art work they had seen at The Collection. They also created instrumental pieces inspired by the repertoire of the final performance, Ibert's Divertissement and Adams' Chamber Symphony, and the theme of time and clocks. James orchestrated the music created by the young people, so the orchestra could play with them at the culmination concert.

"It was really nice for them to have a visual starting point to create the music, and the primary school groups came up with some fantastic words, inspired by the paintings they looked at." - Musician

On Monday 6 December 2010 all the participants came together at Lincoln Drill Hall for a massed rehearsal with conductor Nicholas Collon and James Redwood. Due to workshop time lost to the snowy conditions in Lincoln the participants worked extra hard to bring together all the music they had created. The groups shared the music they had created with each other and rehearsed the parts where they would all play together in the final performance.

"I enjoyed composing music and hearing the final piece with the full orchestra." - Participant, Lincoln College

On the following day the participants were joined by the 19 piece orchestra and the massed ensemble rehearsed together before the evening's concert. Prior to the performance there was a private view at the Usher Gallery of the art work the participants had created during the project. Another part of the project was led by c1media who taught a few participants from each group journalism skills, including how to capture and edit video, undertake interviews and take photographs. The documentaries these participants created were shown at the Usher Gallery as part of the private view and can be seen on our YouTube channel [external link].

"I was really pleased with my performance and the performance on a whole. Definitely would love to do this project again." - Participant, Lincoln College

Friends, family and members of the general public braved the freezing weather conditions to attend the concert at Lincoln Drill Hall on Tuesday 7 December 2010. The music created by the young people was interspersed with the orchestral repertoire of the evening's concert. The performance was greatly enjoyed by the participants and audience members and was even more exciting because the participants had worked so hard battling the elements to ensure they gave a brilliant performance.

"Getting to such a strong performance after such an interrupted project left everyone feeling really proud of what they'd achieved." - James Redwood, Workshop Leader

"We are speechless – once again a fabulous project and such an exciting finale I, for one, nearly burst!" - Headteacher, Nettleham Junior School

Time Stands Still was generously supported by Rolls-Royce plc, Orchestras Live, Bergne Coupland Trust, JR Halkes Settlement, Angus Allnatt Charitable Foundation, The Collection, Lincolnshire County Council, Lincoln Drill Hall, sinfonia ViVA and Arts Council England

Images from the project...