Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Service

Northamptonshire, England, has a music and performing arts service to provide instrumental music lessons in local schools. Its services are available to around 11,000 school children. In July the music service through MSEP evaluation was given an Outstanding level. The service supports 15 Saturday morning music centres and many music and drama groups, all within Northamptonshire. Membership of the county level groups is determined by an annual audition process in July. For most groups there are three levels: Junior, Training and Youth and are usually abbreviated by teachers and students eg. County Junior Wind Orchestra (CJWO), County Training Strings (CTS) & County Youth Orchestra (CYO)

There are groups covering ensemble, orchestral, brass band, wind band, jazz, rock, guitar, percussion, voice, drama, dance and early years music.

Location

The music service headquarters is in Northampton in a Victorian school building on the corner of Clare Street and the Kettering Road that used to be known as John Clare School.

Performances and events

Groups from the music service perform at the Derngate, Spinney Hill Hall, Cripps Hall, The Lighthouse Theatre and other venues.

Each year, there are residential courses at Grendon Hall.

The music groups and groups from the Saturday morning centres take part in the National Festival of Music for Youth. At the 2008 festival in Birmingham, the following Northamptonshire groups were presented with awards:^[1]

• County Youth Concert Band (Outstanding)
• County Youth Brass Band (Outstanding)
• County Youth Orchestra (Outstanding)
• County Youth Big Band (Outstanding)
• County Youth String Sinfonia (Highly Commended)
• County Junior Strings (Outstanding)

In 2011 all of the top 5 County Youth Groups (Orchestra, Brass band, Big Band, Concert Band and Choir) all won awards at the Music for Youth regional festival in Birmingham.

The music service is often represented at the Schools Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in November. In 2008 the County Youth Brass Band and Primo Tuba Quartet featured at the Schools Proms and in 2009 the County Youth Big Band and Youth Orchestra featured at the Schools Proms

Saturday Morning Music and Performing Arts Centres

These are located in the following areas:

• Brackley
• Cheney
• Corby
• Daventry
• Duston
• Favell
• Ferrers
• Guilsborough
• Kettering
• Oundle
• Roade
• Towcester
• Spinney Hill (formerly Trinity)
• Wellingborough

References

1. ^ Music for Youth - Youth Music, Young people and music, Regional Festival, National Festival, Festival of Youth Music, Schools Prom, Primary Prom, Lollipop Prom, Prom, Rock^{[dead link]}

External links

• Northamptonshire Music Service
• Music for Youth

Coordinates: 52°14′39″N 0°53′03″W / 52.2442°N 0.8841°W / 52.2442; -0.8841