A national music charity is marking the upcoming Coronation by arranging celebratory bandstand performances across England, supported by The National Lottery.
Music for Youth is a nationwide arts organisation that helps young people across England achieve their musical potential by performing the music they love.
For months, organisations have been applying for National Lottery funding to help celebrate and mark the Coronation of His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen Consort.
Encompassing areas of the environment, arts, education, community, heritage and sport, National Lottery funding is being used to deliver a weekend of extraordinary events or projects which will have a lasting positive impact in their communities beyond the Coronation.
From Coronation Big Lunches and street parties, which bring people together – delivering culture, art, and music festivals – to supporting projects that provide new opportunities for diverse younger people to engage with heritage or sport, there is truly something for everyone.
Arts Council England have awarded £250,400 to Music for Youth to deliver the Coronation Bandstands Project, and in celebration of the inspirational opportunities the project will provide for children and young people to take part in and watch performances in public park bandstands across the country during the Coronation weekend. Music For Youth is a nationwide organisation that looks to help young people across England achieve their musical potential by performing the music they love.
For Music for Youth’s Director of Programmes, Kate Gardner, the chance to bring communities across the country together is a key part of the project.
She said: “We are collaborating with local partners across England, there are going to be fifteen events taking place on bandstands across the country, celebrating the local culture of each area, allowing people to come and listen to young people make great music.
“We are hoping to see around 9,000 young people take part in the project across England and it goes all the way from Penzance in the south to Tyneside in the north. Performances will include a variety of musical styles and genres and will also feature dance, theatre and spoken word.
“Some are on the Big Lunch Day on the Sunday; some are screening the Coronation - so you can watch the Coronation and listen to music afterwards - and some are just using it as a local community celebration to celebrate the whole weekend.
“It is all about bringing together communities across England in celebration of this historic event.”
Music For Youth will be running their own open bandstand in Brighton as part of the celebrations. To mark the important event, a young composer from the Norfolk Music Hub has also been commissioned as part of the project. His fanfare/piece will be performed at all bandstand events across England, including his own Bandstand at Gorleston-on-Sea.
She added: “We commissioned a young person to write a fanfare for the Coronation. That will be played across all the bandstands across England but also it will be made available on our website as well.
“The National Lottery funding is vital for all of this. We would not be able to bring this together without it and I think it has been wonderful to see how that money has supported local communities coming together.
“It really has enabled groups who normally wouldn’t be able to come to our events to celebrate this locally, whilst also being part of a bigger nationwide project across the country and bringing these young people together through something creative and cultural.”
Darren Henley, CEO, Arts Council England, said: "His Majesty the King has long been a champion of music and musicians, so it’s fitting that we’re supporting this celebratory showcase of the next generation of England’s exciting young musical talent as they perform on bandstands across the country.”
National Lottery players raise more than £30 million a week for arts, education, environment, health, heritage, sport, and voluntary projects across the UK; see the difference it’s making near you at www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk
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