This May will see a team of highly skilled and experienced musicians from the National Concert Hall’s Learn & Explore programme undertake a week-long residency in St Colman’s NS, Mullingar.
The initiative, entitled Ulster Bank Up the Tempo, will provide fun and interactive composition workshops for primary school students along with hands-on, high quality music experiences for teachers and children alike.
Participating students will have the opportunity to work closely with professional musicians and explore their own creativity using instruments provided by the National Concert Hall to compose brand new music based on the story of the magical Mozart opera, The Magic Flute.
The pupils of St Colman’s will showcase their composing and performance skills in a lunchtime concert in the school on Friday May 28 at 1.15pm. Additionally, all composition students will be invited to perform in a grand finale lunchtime concert at the end of the season on June 8 in the National Concert Hall, Dublin.
The Learn & Explore team will also provide half-day workshops to four other schools in the Westmeath area, in which classes are introduced to a variety of instruments and musical activities. These schools include Scoil Mhuire CBS, Mullingar (Monday May 24 ), St Patrick’s NS, Delvin (Tuesday May 25 ), St Ernan’s NS, Delvin (Wednesday May 26 ), and the Convent Primary School, Rochfortbridge (Thursday May 27 ).
In addition, with the supporting sponsorship from Ulster Bank, the National Concert Hall is providing a free music workshop and teacher support session for all primary teachers in the area, encouraging the sharing of ideas for using and teaching music in the classroom. This will take place on Monday May 31 from 7-9pm in the Athlone Education Centre, Moydrum Road, Athlone.
