Last week, 15 year 5 pupils from St Nicolas and St Mary’s Primary School in Shoreham-by-Sea came to SAM to record a musical interpretation of the topic Rivers for use at the International Neighbours event at the Adur Festival. Mrs Green from International Neighbours, St Nic’s and SAM worked together to create an exciting learning environment in which the children were able to work with professional musicians and record their composition in SAM’s exciting new recording studio. 

The pupils had been concentrating on rivers as part of their poetry unit, and explored sounds and movements associated with moving water to create written images. By experimenting with rhythm, layering words and using their voices as instruments, they later created and performed poetic 'songs', which represented their river's journey.

   

In conjunction with this, in their music lessons, they explored ways of interpreting the river's journey through musical sounds.  By experimenting with musical instruments, they generated their own short, percussive, improvisations, (e.g. mountain springs, waterfalls, swollen rivers after the melting of mountain ice) which eventually culminated in a collaborative musical interpretation of the process of water, collecting together, to reach the sea.  

The children then worked together to look at ways of presenting the poetry (songs) to the public, making a Powerpoint display of visual images of rivers in different ‘moods’, and recording a soundtrack for use alongside the display in an assembly watched by parents, children and teachers at the school. 

Mrs Green contacted SAM to invite us to add the expertise of our professional musicians, and we were only too happy to help. The children came and experimented with instruments, creating an incredibly dynamic way of learning. They then used these sounds to create a musical composition which they recorded in the recording studio at SAM. 

The collaboration between St Nic’s and SAM with the help of International Neighbours has been very exciting, and we look forward to working together in the future to enable pupils to benefit from the enrichment that combining music and different types of curriculum can bring to learning. 

The pupils will be performing at the International Neighbours event for the Adur Festival, using the recording made at SAM, on the 5th June, from 10-5 at the Shoreham Centre. They will also be attending the SAM open day, which is happening on 19th June between 10 am and 3pm. Don’t miss the chance to see such an inspirational performance from some very talented youngsters!