Nottingham Music Hub Takes its City-Wide Youth Orchestra Online
27th March 2020
On Saturday the 21st March local Nottingham charity, The Nottingham Music Hub, blazed an exciting new trail by bringing the joy of playing live music, as a large group online, in the midst of Coronavirus social distancing. Nottingham City instrumentalists aged between 8 -18, who are part of the Robin Hood Youth Orchestra (RHYO), came together online to rehearse and perform two well-known pieces of music.
This fabulous achievement was drawn together in only one week, after the Music Hub started digitalising their teaching in order to continue providing high-class music and instrumental lessons for children in schools. The orchestra is made up of children from over 40 schools across Nottingham City, all of whom meet every Saturday morning for a rehearsal. When it became obvious that they would no longer be able to meet physically the Music Hub worked hard to ensure that the Saturday rehearsal would go ahead as usual – but online.
At 10:30 on Saturday morning over fifty instrumental students logged in to their instrument groups via their home laptops, phones or tablets to rehearse the two pieces, ‘Big Twelve’ and ‘Skyfall’ from James Bond. Each student had a downloadable score and then at 12:30 they all joined together online, as one orchestra, for an impressive performance.
Ian Burton the Chief Executive of Nottingham Music Hub said – ‘This truly impressive feat of teamwork shows just how we can turn a potentially limiting situation into a positive musical group experience for children across the city’. The reaction on the Hub’s social feeds was phenomenal, with one parent commenting – ‘Just listening to orchestra rehearsal in our house today. You seem to be performing some kind of miracle. Next week walking on water, I trust. Thank you!’.
Nottingham Music Hub is really proud of how adaptable their excellent staff have been which has enabled the charity to continue in its mission of providing accessible music education to as many Nottingham City children as possible.
If you feel that you or your child would like to learn how to make music, with or without an instrument, whilst you are at home, The Music Hub is recording and uploading videos to their website that provide fun and informative lessons. We are already planning an online music festival so please keep checking our website (www.nottinghammusichub.org.uk) or our social media (twitter.com/NottMusicHub) (facebook.com/NottinghamMusicHub) for more information and videos.
