The National Orchestra for All to end Wordplay season in Birmingham
The UK’s only national youth orchestra open to disadvantaged young musicians of all abilities, will end its WordPlay season with a free concert at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
WordPlay is all about how music, language and words – whether written or spoken – are intimately connected.
The concert will include the world première of a brand-new piece featuring Roundhouse Resident Artist, poet Kit Finnie.
The National Orchestra for All (NOFA) is made up of one hundred aspiring young musicians, aged 11 to18, who have shown a passion for music despite facing challenging circumstances.
These circumstances include coming from an economically deprived background, being a young carer, an unaccompanied refugee, living in isolated rural areas or living with a physical disability or chronic health condition.
The young musicians have come together to perform and explore how music and language are connected. The concert at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire will be the culmination of this work and features the world première of An Orchestra of Overheard Conversations by composer Danyal Dhondy, inspired by the speech patterns of the young musicians.
The orchestra will also perform arrangements of a selection of popular opera choruses and a traditional Ghanaian song A Keelie Makolay, arranged for orchestra and choir.
NOFA began with just 40 players in 2011, as the brainchild of a young North London school music teacher, Marianna Hay, who was deeply concerned at the lack of opportunities for young people to access the potentially life-changing experience of playing music together.
Now the orchestra is the principal programme of the registered charity Orchestras for All, of which Marianna is founder and artistic director.
Each year young people from across the UK are nominated to join the National Orchestra for All by their music teachers, for showing commitment and dedication to music in the face of challenging circumstances.
Membership of the orchestra is entirely free. This is made possible by generous donations from a range of organisations and members of the public.
Involvement in playing music, particularly in groups, has been shown to have numerous benefits, including improving learning, concentration, confidence, collaboration, self-expression and communication skills.
As previous NOFA member Matthew said: "The orchestra has driven me in a direction I thought I’d never explore, inspiring me to pursue orchestral performance and a degree in music.”
NOFA will perform from 4pm to 5pm on April 14 at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
To book free tickets to the event, click here.
