‘Muziek raken’, day seven

‘Muziek raken’ (Touching music) is an educational project about music I developed together with Marloes Bloemenkamp. Day seven! Time to perform.

Published: July 3, 2012
Tags: Education, Esc.rec., Havenkwartier, Music, WILLIE

‘Muziek raken’ (Touching music) is an educational project about music I developed together with Marloes Bloemenkamp. She teaches three groups of gifted children in the ages 9-12 from different primary schools in Deventer. Read more (about lesson one and the project in general) in this post.

Day seven! Time to perform. Nerves raging, because the show was practically sold out! The kids are now going  to perform there compositions in a venue, on a stage, for a 300+ audience. This was also the first time we had microphones and a sound engineer at our disposal. We never had a chance to practice with amplified instruments before, so we hoped for the best…

Some kids were really excited about the presence of ‘real’ artists who were going to play on the same stage after them. Read more about the complete line-up for the show overhere.

I’m very happy to say that all nine performances and everything else about this day turned out to be a grand succes! I was quite nervous, because I was not about to let these brave kids down now in any way. Everything had to be as perfect as it could be. Which naturally added more pressure than I’m used to before a show…

We had a superquiet audience. The kids outdid themselves. The sound engineer worked magic (thanks Elio!), which made the more subtle instruments stand out better. The changes between orchestra’s went quickly and smooth. The applause was massive. There were pancakes. And to top it off, the other two artists who were booked for this show were great. Especially the show by Stijn was extremely entertaining for both kids and adults. A great day!

Bertin

Stijn

Stijn on a crowded stage

More photo’s here and here.

We also had an exhibition with all the work made in lesson three, complemented with a photo report explaining the whole project. Check page one, two, three, four, five and six.

I’m very, very, very pleased with the way this project turned out. So is Marloes Bloemenkamp, the teacher who made this project possible in the first place. And the director of Sine Limite hopes I can do this again sometime. I hope so too. If only for the many enthousiastic responses I got from the children (and the parents). I really feel I contributed something worthwhile to their education and state of mind towards music. Very rewarding work!