Congratulation to MK Music Centre violinist Maisie who is the beneficiary of a grant from the charity ‘Awards for Young Musicians’ https://www.a-y-m.org.uk/
This brilliant charity helps young musicians like Maisie with the cost of buying instruments and organises events for its award winners, like this workshop with the BBC Symphony Orchestra
Here’s how Maisie got on during her day with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in her own words:
“When we arrived, we were split into two groups so that we could each sit next to a member of the orchestra. The groups were the Strauss group and the Smetana group, I was in the Smetana group. We played the Smetana Vlata and the Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel Overture.
The Strauss group played with the professionals first, and the Smetana group went into a separate studio to do some workshops. We did some icebreakers by saying our name and our instrument and did some body percussion games. We then split into groups and had to answer a question that we were given. My groups question was “how can you make the most of your side by side”, and we had a member of the orchestra in our group so we got to ask questions about what it is like in a professional orchestra.
After that we got our instruments out and did some more group work, including playing a scale and having someone standing the middle conducting the group. We also had the whole orchestra do a drone while someone got to go in the middle and improvise a solo to the drone.
After we finished the workshop, we went to the studio and watched the Strauss group perform their piece. Then the groups switched over.
Each aym member sat next to a professional so they could get help from their professional. We rehearsed the pieces with the conductor Andrew Gourlay. We rehearsed for a couple ours before our family came in and we performed our pieces.
It was a long day, but such brilliant fun. I learnt so much playing in a professional orchestra and would do it again any day I could.”