Christ College Announces A Partnership With The Welsh Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra

Through its new flagship project ‘Crescendo’, which was formally launched last month, Christ College will be one of five schools around Wales that The Welsh Sinfonia will be working with. It will see them supporting our aspiring instrumental players as they are given the opportunity to perform exciting orchestral repertoire, with professional musicians from The Welsh Sinfonia sitting alongside them in a major concert each year.

Director of Music at Christ College, Jonathan Ling, said: “As well as helping to develop instrumental playing at Christ College, there will be a benefit to the whole community in terms of familiarising the next generation of audiences and players with classical music.”

“Music is a considerable force in developing young people’s minds, feeding them creatively and stimulating their interest in a range of subjects, positively and vibrantly,” added Mark Eager. “Learning instruments is terrific and must be encouraged, but listening to and understanding great music is even more important as it can benefit everyone. It’s never too soon to get the brain turned on to classical music; young people are our future audiences and some of them even our future performers.”

Mark Eager will be visiting Christ College on Monday 24th March for the first of a series of rehearsals where musicians will be working towards a concert to take place in the next academic year.

The Welsh Sinfonia’s ‘Crescendo’ project, which is supported and partially funded by the Arts Council of Wales, will see The Welsh Sinfonia professionals working with pupils in up to five secondary schools a year all over Wales.

A rolling, structured five year programme will cover all aspects of playing classical music in an orchestra, including a leadership and teamwork module relevant to life out of school, delivered by Neath-based youth motivation organisation, Call of the Wild.

The project was successfully piloted in 2013 at St John Baptist in Aberdare, whose fledgling orchestra has as a result opted to play an all-classical programme this year. New schools in 2014 are Bro Ddyffi in Machynlleth, Sandfields Comprehensive in Port Talbot, Bryn Hyfryd in Ruthin, and Christ College.