Arts Council England support music education project

Congratulations to the Olympias Music Foundation (OMF) on securing over £22,000 from Arts Council England to support a collaborative music education project exploring real-life migration stories by 60 secondary school pupils.

Making Manchester, a bold new project by OMF in conjunction with Dean Trust Ardwick Secondary School (DTA), explores communities’ shared experiences of migration through live music, poetry and physical theatre.

Working with Our Migration Story, OMF led six weeks of oral history and writing workshops with Year 9 pupils in June last year, 95% of which were from BAME backgrounds. The result was 60 unique family stories, written and researched by the pupils themselves, which will be transformed into a multimedia performance later this month.

RNCM PhD student Jo Yee Cheung, Director of OMF, said: ‘In true keeping with the charity’s spirit, the entire work is rooted in the ideas and experiences of the 60 pupils from DTA. At a time when migrants’ experiences are still often mis-portrayed and/or underrepresented, and access to arts education is increasingly scarce, I think this project is really important in highlighting the problems created by an ‘us and them’ mentality.’

Acclaimed musicians Kabantu, the Vonnegut Collective and James Whittle, who led music workshops at DTA, will be performing the work, directed by Emma Doherty, with a choir of 60 school children and four actors at the Niamos Radical Arts Centre on 27 and 28 June. An additional performance will also take place at the RNCM in October.

Tickets for June’s concerts are £5, available online from Skiddle, Tickets For Good, or on the door.

7 June 2019