The search is on to find young musicians for fundraising concert
An ambitious plan to bring together a band of Shropshire’s talented and award-winning musicians in just three days for a one-off charity event has been unveiled by a school in the county.
Wrekin Foundation, a charity attached to Wellington’s Wrekin College, will be leading the bid to create a Youth Wind Band from scratch over three days in July culminating in a fundraising concert. Money raised will go to a local charity, that will be decided upon by the participants.
The project is the brainchild of Director of Music Simon Platford, who was keen to recognise and celebrate that several schools in Shropshire have achieved the highest national honours for the performances of their wind bands.
He said today it proved the county was a “hotbed” of musical talent adding that it would be wonderful to be able to showcase that by bringing as many of those promising young musicians together as possible.
The three-day musical summer school will be free to musicians up to the age of 19 who play a wind or percussion instrument at Grade 3 standard and above. The search is on now to find enough musicians, on the variety of instruments needed to form a band of this makeup, who wish to take part.
The event will run from 10am-4pm on July 26 27and 28 with the concert taking place on the Friday evening at Wrekin College.
The project will make the most of a state-of-the-art ensemble rehearsal space which was built as part of Wrekin’s new Music School.
“With such success in the county at a national level it seemed to me the ideal time to combine the forces of local musicians and see if there was enough interest to put together a youth band from scratch over three days culminating in a charity concert,” added Mr Platford.
“It’s an exciting project which will hopefully see lots of accomplished band players come together with those who would love to see what it is like performing as part of a countywide wind band.
“Any players who have reached Grade Three standard or above will find this a wonderful and accessible way to experience performing with other musicians. We all know too that our young musicians put in a lot of time and effort to practice and part of their reward should be as many opportunities as possible to perform for an audience. I am very much looking forward to seeing what this group can achieve together in a relatively short space of time.”
Musicians have already started to sign up but the project is still just a few short from being feasible, so this is a final push to get it ‘over the line’.
As part of the event those taking part will be given lunch and refreshments during the day.
Anyone who would like their child to take part can contact 01952 265600 and ask for music or email music@wrekincollege.com. Applications must be received by the end of May.
