The National Concert Hall is working to bring music to children in Dublin’s Docklands.

The National Concert Hall has teamed up with the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) to develop a two-part project involving four primary schools in the Docklands area. This is the third year of this award-winning partnership with the DDDA in which the ‘Music in the Docklands’ Project aims to provide access to music at local level and to develop lasting relationships between schools and the National Concert Hall.

Part two of the project will see pupils of St. Vincent’s Girls National School, Dublin 1 and St. Patrick’s Girls National School, Ringsend, take part in a series of music workshops which will culminate in a final performance at the National Concert Hall on Wednesday 9 November 2005.

The three-week intensive series of music workshops begins on Tuesday 18 October when a team of professional musicians provided by the National Concert Hall’s Education and Community Outreach department travels to the schools to help the children compose their own music and lyrics.

London-based animateur Tim Steiner will lead the project with the help of four musicians: Síle Daly (oboe), Susan Doyle (flute), Paul Maher (percussion) and Arun Rao (cello). Both schools will then join together to perform to a group of family, friends and the general public at the National Concert Hall.

Students who took part in the project in previous years said, “Before the project I was not very musical but since that experience I am playing the piano... I usually hum the song that we made...”.

In 2004 the National Concert Hall won the award for ‘Best Business/Arts Collaboration for the First Time’ at the Allianz Business2Arts Awards for work that was done in 2003.

Posted: 26 October 2005