At our spring Orchestral Week in 2025 for our 12 and 13 year olds, we were joined by musician and environmentalist Simmy Singh.
Simmy held workshops in the grounds of the school the young musicians were staying in, encouraging children taking part to connect with nature and the environment around them. They started with a group song incorporating different birds and their sounds and talked about how birds use sounds as calls to each other to communicate danger. They played games to focus their senses as an animal such as a bat might, and discussed how a changing environment affects the sounds we hear today compared to 100 years ago. Simmy shared her own experiences as a composer and violinist, and how she uses the sounds in nature to inspire her own compositions and music making.
This summer
At summer residentials, the same young musicians, of the Under 13 Orchestra, will be rehearsing and performing their There’s no Planet B programme.
They’ll use their creative composition sessions – Surround sound – to explore how music can raise awareness and open up conversations and inspire activism and an understanding of how we can all play our part to have a positive effect on the growing climate emergency.
Watch this space for more updates!
Discover Orchestral weeks
Find out more about Orchestral weeks and who can audition.
