Children complete and perform their own original and unique song!
Blog by Project Animateur: Neil Valentine (Creative Music Project: final session - 12th March)
Following the three sessions with Years 4 and 5 pupils at Preston Candover Primary School (see earlier entries) - performance day finally arrives!
Preston Candover Primary School SONG!
On Tuesday, the 12th of March, myself and Adam Blosse returned to Preston Candover, Primary School to record and perform our brand-new song: This Place. This song has gone on quite a journey! Its beginnings were in the pews of St John’s, where we gathered to reflect on how this place made us feel. It made us feel calm and quiet. It also made us feel a little surreal, somehow in a space which was separate from the world, protected in someway, serene.
From here, over the course of three sessions in the school, the song took on new meaning and a new life, where we bought in ideas of how our lives at school felt and how this related to our experiences in St John’s. The song became about friendship and how we feel at school - when we are surrounded by friends, or, in the words of the song . ..’like we’re part of a second family’. And for me, the song then became an allegory for something bigger - for how we can feel in the world, when we have people around us and situations and spaces that accept us for who we are and what we can bring in the moment.
The parallels of the lyrics ‘in this colossal world’ and ‘endless universe’ connect the song to the age-old human search for meaning beyond; yet we see feel and hear right now. It’s quite amazing how this can happen with a piece of art. How an idea can start somewhere and then morph and change and grow as we start delve into it a bit more deeply and chip away around the edges to reveal what has been there all along.
This is, of course all subjective and you may think that I am reading too much into this. However, just listening to the recording it is objectively beautiful. The young people from Preston Candover Primary sang with good intonation and phrasing, as well as with emotion and feeling. Plus Adam’s piano playing is always sumptuous and lovely to listen to.
Here it is again - Preston Candover Primary School SONG!
I am hopeful that the song may have a life after this project. I hope that the school take it and continue to sing it. It could even become some kind of anthem for the school. They may like to change the words slightly or add new music, it belongs to them and community after all.
Neil Valentine (Project Animateur)
Neil Valentine
