Last year, as part of our work bringing live music into our local community, Dunster Festival engaged with more than 300 students at Danesfield and Minehead Middle Schools in a singing and visual arts project where a professional vocal ensemble and an experienced visual artist and animator visited the schools to work with Years 5 & 6. Workshops with the vocal ensemble introduced students to the sound world and expressive possibilities of a cappella vocal music by women composers from throughout history (1300-present day) and encouraged them to think about how they can express themselves musically using their own voices. Students then worked in their class groups with artist and animator Katie Single over the course of multiple sessions to create stop motion animations to accompany a particular piece of music they had heard.
The professional singers joined the students for an exhibition of their completed animations with live musical performance, where they sang together to and with an audience of their parents, community and peers.
The animations with accompanying recorded music were then exhibited in a space at East Quay for several weeks, allowing the public to engage with them, and for the students to see their work in a gallery context.
We’re pleased that the films are now available for viewing on the Dunster Festival Youtube page:
Feedback from the project was fantastic, and is exactly why we think this work is so important. We are hugely grateful to our Festival Friends and to the Trusts and Foundations who support us in making projects like this one possible: we’re hard at work on this year’s schools projects, and look forward to sharing the results in due course!
“My favourite thing was that we could hear them sing and then we could sing with them”
Barney, Y5 Student
“I liked how when the people sung the songs, afterwards we got to say what we thought about – I learnt that all of the songs were written by ladies”
Vivienne, Y5 Student
“My class came back from every rehearsal very excited. They have really enjoyed every moment of preparation and performance. They spent all week looking forward to their concert. Thank you again”
HS, Class Teacher