On Wednesday 13th May 2015 we were lucky enough to go to BBC Ten Pieces Live at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank to hear the BBC Concert Orchestra perform the Ten Pieces of music that formed this project. It was such a brilliant event, with the hall packed full of excited children that couldn’t wait to hear the music. Their enthusiasm and excitement was palatable and I loved how they started clapping when the pre performance music came on. You’d never find an adult doing that, spontaneously clapping along to the intro music, just because if felt good to, in a hall full of other adults!
The children had their excitement rewarded as we were taught how to sing Zadok The Priest by some of the BBC Singers, led by Rebecca (a wonderfully enthusiastic lady who I’ve been lucky enough to do workshops with before) and later on taught some of the body percussion parts to the Anna Meridith body percussion composition, Connect It. With these two audience interaction pieces interspersing the rest of the pieces, the children were enraptured by watching a live orchestra play and feeling a little bit emotional it bought a tear to my eye seeing their joy, and goosebumps on my body hearing the whole of the hall (about 2,000 people) singing Zadok The Priest with an live orchestra.
What a day! As some of you might know, the inspiration lady who was leading this project, Katy Jones, sadly died a few weeks ago. I couldn’t help observe what a wonderful legacy she has left. Lucky children.