Music on the other side of the great celebrity divide


This path leads from music education in Norfolk England to Thomas Adès in New York. Members of the Britten Sinfonia are seen here working as part of the In Harmony project which uses music to bring positive change to the lives of young people in some of the most deprived areas of England. I took the photos this morning at Larkman Primary School and the young musicians seen in them will be joining violinist Pekka Kuusisto and me for a pre-concert event in Norwich on February 25th at which they will play Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Pachelbel. After their performance Thomas Adès conducts his Concerto for Violin, felicitously subtitled Concentric Paths, with Pekka Kuusisto as soloist, and music by Couperin, Ravel and Stravinsky. The Norwich concert is part of a Concentric Paths tour by the Britten Sinfonia, Thomas Adès and Pekka Kuusisto; the other venues are Dijon (Feb 11), Cambridge (Feb 20), Lincoln Center, New York (Feb 22), London, Queen Elizabeth Hall (Feb 27), and Dublin (Feb 28). As Alex Ross reminds us today, classical music is lucky to be on the other side of the great celebrity divide, and those working on In Harmony are just some of its many unsung saviours.


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Comments

JMW said…
"Like"!
The bridging of the divide between professionals and amateurs seen in these photos is a wonderful thing to behold. For these children, at least, high level music is something they've experienced in a personal, informal way, and not something confined to special places far away from their daily lives.

Good of you to involve yourself in the program and with them. It makes a difference you're actually doing something and not just writing about a problem and talking about what other people should do. Kudos.

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