Crescendo Makes Headlines

It’s been a big week for Crescendo, our flagship partnership programme with Colin Neighbourhood Partnership, Greater Shankill Partnership and Queen’s University Innovation Zones which reaches children from four Primary Schools in North and West Belfast, providing them with high quality music education. As the school year comes to a close, we’ve been celebrating the achievements of our pupils with a series of gala events, culminating in a special concert in the Ulster Hall on Thursday 13 June.
 
We’ve been thrilled at the reaction and feedback to the events, and especially pleased to see the news of Crescendo spread through various media outlets online, on TV and in print. Here are some highlights.
 
We were delighted to welcome the First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly, to our Crescendo Final Event at the Ulster Hall, along with Junior Ministers Pam Cameron and Aisling Reilly. They saw P3 and P7 pupils from our partner schools, Malvern Primary School, Wheatfield Primary School, Holy Evangelists’ Primary School and Good Shepherd Primary School perform with the Ulster Orchestra, and shared photos and video on their social media pages.
 

We are grateful to the Belfast Telegraph for covering the event, which you can read here, and highlighting that for the first time pupils had learned brass instruments on the programme, and that P7 pupils from all four schools participated in cross-community play-along rehearsals ahead of the grand finale.
 
The Andersonstown News came to our Crescendo gala event in Colin Town Square on Wednesday morning, where P1 and P2s from Holy Evangelists’ and Good Shepherd Primary Schools joined musicians from the Orchestra to perform songs they’d learned with their tutors. Read the article here. P1 and P2 pupils from Malvern and Wheatfield held their gala events in school on Tuesday.
 
UTV Live were also at the Ulster Hall and broadcast a report about the event on Thursday evening’s news.
 

Our tutors, teachers in our partner schools, partnership organisations and members of Orchestra staff work hard all year round to provide pupils with the best music education possible, and it is brilliant to see the programme reach a wider audience and demonstrate the benefits and joy that learning music brings.