A cross arts programme to engage school groups with the life of George Frideric Handel
After a successful pilot year in 2014-15, Handel & Hendrix in London is delighted to offer this scheme to six schools, creating long term relationships with each school through the exploration of the life and music of the great composer, George Frideric Handel.
The aim of this project is to inspire children with a strong and exciting sense of direct connection to their classical music heritage dating back to the time when Handel lived and composed his works in Brook Street, London.
For 2015-16, we have been working with three schools from Brent and three schools from the Tri-borough area of Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea. The programme introduces pupils in a new and imaginative way to the concept of their musical heritage here in central London: inspiring them with a sense of history through visiting Handel’s home, as well as bringing that history alive for them in the present day through opportunities to enjoy and understand the music and to experiment with performing themselves. The project is based around the exciting theme of Kings and Queens using examples of Handel’s music written for royalty and of his music written about royalty.
Each participating school are offered three workshops over the course of a year, with materials provided to prepare for the workshops and to do follow-up work in school. One of these sessions will be at Handel House and will comprise of a tour and a 1 hour workshop tailor-made to suit the school’s interests. Two follow-up sessions will take place at the school, during which other art forms will be used to further explore Handel’s life and music. All will be devised and delivered by the Head of Learning and Participation with help from Handel House volunteers, interns and the Composer-in-Residence as required. The last of the follow-up sessions will be part-run by a baroque dance specialist who will visit each school with a keyboard player to teach the children all about baroque dance to gain a deeper meaning of Handel’s dance music.
The aim of this project is to inspire children with a strong and exciting sense of direct connection to their classical music heritage dating back to the time when Handel lived and composed his works in Brook Street, London.
In addition to this, each school will be invited to the London Handel Festival School’s Matinee Production of Handel’s opera, Ariodante in March 2016.
In between sessions, each school will have a selection of activities to work on, most notably, a set of songs and/or orchestral pieces by Handel to learn as a class. In January 2016, we will provide an INSET to all teachers to introduce this music and the music hubs will also help deliver these sessions.
Both of these final performances will be professionally filmed and will be made available on our website.
