Supporting Music in Schools
B
vv
SMAe
the
the SCHOOLS MUSIC ASSOCIATION part of the Incorporated Society of Musicians SUMMER 2017 No. 194 £2.50
ULLETIN Hon. editor: Carole Lindsay-Douglas carole@lindsaymusic.co.uk tel: 01767-260815
Final Edition It is with a great sadness and heaviness of heart that I am introducing this edition as the final Bulletin ever to be produced by the Schools Music Association. A decision to cease publication was taken by the Steering Group for SMA within ISM. This course of action is necessitated by the fact that SMA as an organisation within ISM is no longer able to mount the events for which it became known in its heyday – namely massed gatherings of children to perform together in a non-competitive festival atmosphere and the training of teachers in either one-day courses or at the Annual Conference. There are many contributing factors to this situation – the demands on serving teachers’ time, the regulations surrounding out-of-school performances, the cost of transport and of classroom cover and increasing inflexibility regarding time devoted to core curriculum subjects. Therefore with no activity to report, the SMA Bulletin is now largely redundant. Teacher training in the form of one-day courses and Annual Conferences continued until October of 2016, including the provision of CPD in Gibraltar in 2014 under the direction of Dr Douglas Coombes MBE enabled by the enthusiastic encouragement of SMA members Cathy Batchelor and Pam Honeyman. More practical singing and playing with 1300 primary children occurred as part of a Barnardo’s Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London in 2013 when SMA helped establish a Guinness World Record, under the direction of Douglas Coombes along with Corporate Members David and Christa Liggins of Ocarina Workshop for the world’s largest gathering of ocarina players. SMA has always been the practical manifestation of music making with children, under the baton of Ronald Corp OBE in recent decades, for the series of Cathedrals Festivals, bringing together many hundreds of young people and their teachers, singing appropriate repertoire in historic places in association with the Historical Society and the Royal
Farewell to the SMA Bulletin by Hon. Editor Carole Lindsay-Douglas College of Organists, whose Education Officer, Simon Williams, provided organ pieces and demonstrations. Such events were organised by two former Chairmen of SMA, Christine Newman and the late Maxwell Pryce MBE. In 2015 this theme was continued by Alison Hedger, assisted by Reg Fletcher in a music-drama involving many schools in the Winchester area in a work by Alison Hedger, entitled The Way which was held at Winchester Cathedral. SMA, like many purely voluntary organisations, despite its effectiveness and illustrious history, began to find it difficult to recruit sufficient volunteers to continue this outstanding work in the 21st century, and the Trustees realised that something had to be done to preserve its name and heritage. After a considerable period of consultation and an overwhelming vote by the members, a merger took place with the Incorporated Society of Musicians in 2013. Aside from practical music making with young people, there was always much work going on in the background, lobbying politicians with the intention of improving music provision in schools at all levels, and the two Presidents in the lifetime of SMA, conductor, Sir Adrian Boult CBE and composer, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies CBE both played an important and telling role in reaching the ear of those who could be most influential in Government. The merging of SMA with ISM has undoubtedly strengthened influence in political circles, especially with reference to the ongoing Ebacc campaign BACC for the future. The SMA’s most recent initiative, that of organising a composing competition for teachers has now passed its closing date with the results expected to be announced on both the ISM website (ism.org) and on Corporate Member Lindsay Music’s website (lindsaymusic. co.uk) before the end of this term. There have been a number of entries and the winning work, if published, will bear the SMA logo for ever more. (continued on page two)