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Notre Dame School music pupils compose with Scotland’s contemporary music ensemble Red Note

 
Red Note Ensemble are taking their New Music Makers workshop to Notre Dame School this month, working with music teacher Lindsey Millar and pupils studying Advanced Higher and Higher Music, before culminating in a performance on 22 June, 2017.

 
New Music Makers is an exciting and ambitious programme to support the development of young composers in schools across Scotland. Designed to inspire and support composing, the project demonstrates how a professional ensemble working in partnership with a school can create a genuine practical legacy, enabling the school to take the work forward independently.
 
The sessions, led by Red Note’s John Harris, will give 20 pupils all studying Music an insight into some of the ideas and compositional techniques used by professional composers. Four workshops, running from 5 June to 22 June, culminate in an informal performance on 22 June, featuring the pupil’s new compositions performed by Red Note musicians David Munn, Ruth Morley, Jo Nicholson and John Harris.
 
Composer and CEO of Red Note, John Harris, added: “Writing music is as personal and as important as creating new pictures or new stories, or any of the other myriad ways that young people stand for themselves, make their mark and make their own voices heard in the world. Red Note Ensemble loves being part of this process, right there at the centre of the action as new music is being created by these brilliant young students – it’s an amazing thing watching and helping them to create their own music, in their own styles, with their own ideas.”
 
Red Note Ensemble is Scotland’s contemporary music ensemble, dedicated to developing and performing contemporary music to the highest standards, and taking new music out to audiences around and beyond Scotland. They are Associate Contemporary Ensemble at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, an Associate Company of the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh and Associate Ensemble of the soundfestivalAberdeen.

New Music Makers

In September 2013, Red Note were invited by Glasgow Concert Halls to undertake schools workshops in the manner of their long-running emerging-composer-development series Noisy Nights, for the UNESCO Glasgow City of Music Family Fun Day. They partnered with Kings Park Secondary School in Glasgow, working with students who were taking Higher Music exams in the following spring.

The key element introduced to the school workshops was a version of their 10-minute Composing Challenge from the Noisy Nights series. This involves handing out music manuscript paper to members of the audience in the interval and asking whoever wants to write a piece for the ensemble in 10 minutes. A selection are then performed at the beginning of the second half.

The New Music Makers initiative addresses two key issues – i) how to inspire and support composing/inventing with young people in schools and ii) how a professional ensemble working in partnership with a school can create a genuine, practical legacy, supporting a school to take the work forward independently.

New Music Makers is made possible thanks to support from Creative Scotland, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The Robertson Trust and The Radcliffe Trust.

Red Note Biography

Red Note Ensemble is Scotland’s contemporary music ensemble. We develop, perform, present and find new audiences for new music within Scotland, the UK and internationally. The ensemble was founded in 2008 by Scottish cellist Robert Irvine, and is directed by John Harris (Chief Executive and Artistic Co-Director) and Robert Irvine (Artistic Co-Director).

The Ensemble performs the established classics of contemporary music, commissions new music, develops the work of new and emerging composers from around the world, and finds new spaces and new ways of performing and presenting contemporary music to attract new audiences both within Scotland and elsewhere.

Red Note’s performing ensemble is drawn from the deep talent pool of Scottish new music expertise, and counts amongst its players some of the very finest performers working in the UK today. Red Note’s busy schedule comprises tours, site-specific work and cross-artform collaborations on large and small scales, locally and internationally, and a highly-developed access, engagement and participation programme.
Red Note is Associate Contemporary Ensemble at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, an Associate Company of the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh, and Associate Ensemble of the sound Festival Aberdeen.

“Red Note Ensemble’s blistering account of three radical masterpieces….a magnificent achievement in dazzling venue” David Kettle, The Scotsman
“Red Note Ensemble is a Scottish success story.” Anna Picard, The Times
“Red Note Ensemble, superb Scottish specialists in the contemporary, deliver ever piece with precision and relish.” BBC Music Magazine
“(Red Note’s pianist) Simon Smith knocked off outrageously elaborate figuration as though a tune on a pub piano.” Paul Driver, Sunday Times
 
 

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