February Highlights...
 Spotlight on... Townhill Junior School
Townhill Junior School has recently been awarded the Artsmark Gold award, in recognition of the very high level of provision the Southampton school offers in the arts. Artsmark is Arts Council England’s flagship programme to enable schools to evaluate, strengthen and celebrate their arts and cultural provision.
Earlier in February the school had a celebration open evening which featured a varied programme of events, including tours with the school's Arts Council, choir, rhythmic gym club, dance group, recorder group, swing dance and various musicians.
Year 5 pupils spoke about Music at Townhill in their own words:
“We have a wide variety of musical instruments that the students play such as woodwind, stringed instruments and many more. We also have many musical clubs, like orchestra, choir, Jazz and Folk groups. This is where the pupils get to practice playing their instruments and sing to their hearts content.”
“Every summer term, we have a summer concert extravaganza. This is a very exciting time where the pupils get to show off their talents to their friends and families.”
As well as music the school also achieves great things in its art, dance and drama department. Read more here.
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Solent Hubs Conference
On 12 Feb Southampton Music Hub and Portsmouth Music Hub presented the Solent Hubs Conference, an annual collaborative training event for Hub Partners. Hosted at Portsmouth Guildhall, it gave delegates an opportunity to gain CPD, obtain new ideas to take back to the classroom and a great opportunity to network.
Thank you to all of the delegates, workshop leaders, exhibitors & everyone else for making the 2015 Solent Music Hubs Conference a big success. The full gallery from the conference is available to view here.
Southampton Music Services and schools gather pace with BBC Ten Pieces
The BBC Ten Pieces project is gathering pace as schools across the city have been working hard on it through art and music. SMS have delivered free workshops in some schools whilst others are
awaiting for a workshop from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at the end of
term.
In addition a culmination event has been organised for 25 Jun at Turner Sims where schools will showcase
their musical work alongside the BSO.
 BBC Ten Pices Display board at Upper Shirley High
BSO Conducting Mentoring
Scheme
Southampton Music Services has been delighted to work with Frank Zielhorst - Leverhulme Young Conductor in Association at Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Frank has been working
with Anna Robinson and Kevin Withell, directors of Music Service ensemble Southampton Youth Concert Sinfonia. This
included two rehearsals with the orchestra where other SMS ensemble
directors also observed Frank's coaching.
Frank also delivered a very enlightening training session
at last months Solent Conference, as pictured below.
Southampton String Playing Day
SYS, Elgar
and Acorn strings joined forces on 31 Jan for a day's music making
at Richard Taunton’s Sixth Form College. FSYO kindly sponsored the day which the young musicians took part in.
The extensive strings day was led by Christa Porter, also with Chris Nichols introducing the groups to the world of folk fiddling and dance, allowing the groups to dispense with notation and work aurally for a change. Anca
Campanie also took SYS violin players to work on a
couple of the harder parts that were needed for the concert. The day ended with a performance to parents, concluding with a well deserved standing ovation.
Full gallery can be viewed here.
RTSFC Host National Music Festival ‘Music for Youth’
Richard Taunton Sixth Form College was host to the ‘Music for Youth’ Southampton regional festival, as part of the world’s largest youth musical festival, on 10 Feb. The all-day event featured over 550 young people from regional schools and colleges, with performers ranging from 5 to 19 years old.
RTSFC had 4 ensembles participating in the event (including a string group, brass quintet, jazz band, and pop group) and received excellent comments from music mentors Patrick Bailey and Sarah Freestone about their performances.
The judges said: “You demonstrated really mature and subtle playing with incredible musicianship. It was an excellent show which was notable for its quality.” Read more here.
Becketts Music Ltd joins Southampton Music Hub
The Southampton Music Hub network continues to expand! Becketts Music Ltd is the latest partner to join the Hub, contributing through the loan of instruments for musical events; student discount on the Southampton Music Service Annual Handbook and discounted musical instruments/repair.
Established in 1946, Becketts Music Ltd is a supplier of musical instruments for both aspiring and professional musicians. A traditional music retailer, Becketts sells Brass, woodwind, guitars, stringed instruments, keyboards and digital pianos.
For a list of Southampton Music Hub partners visit here.
Music Curriculum Teacher Wanted
Southampton Music Services is looking for a short term music curriculum teacher for Tuesdays (May- July 2015). For further details or to apply please send a CV and covering letter to
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Library Service - Last chance to have your say...
It will soon be time for us to make some really important
decisions about the future
of our city's library service, however we will not do this
without fully evaluating the findings of our 14-week public consultation
which ends this Friday.
Don't miss your chance to complete our short questionnaire before then
to help us decide the future of the library service. Questionnaires
for children and young people are also available.
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