Adopt A Music Creator 2022
We are thrilled to announce that we have been chosen to participate in this year’s Adopt A Music Creator project.
Click here to watch videos recorded at the concert.
Click here to access the recording of our performance broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Just to say thank you for putting forward Voices of Exmoor to become part of the Adopt a Music Creator project. I know so very little about music, but I am very excited about the opportunities that I will have access to over the coming year. So much to learn, so much hard work and so much fun.
Choir member, January 2022
PRESS RELEASE
Adopt a Music Creator 2022 pairings announced
Celebrated project brings together music creators and leisure-time music groups to collaborate on new music for premiere
Making Music, the UK’s membership organisation for leisure-time music, is delighted to announce the pairings selected for the Adopt a Music Creator project 2022. The year-long project pairs leisure-time music groups with an emerging music creator for a year, culminating in a premiere performance, recording and radio broadcast.
The landmark project began as Adopt a Composer in 2000, inspiring over 120 hugely diverse works and performances by music creators and leisure-time music groups of all types and genres across the UK. Now known as Adopt a Music Creator, the project has broadened its scope for more opportunities and collaborations.
While music groups get a chance to participate in the creative process and discover new music, music creators have an opportunity to form a close working relationship with their group, allowing them to respond to the group’s unique personality and interests. Each pairing is assigned an experienced mentor to support and guide the creator and group, helping the process run smoothly.
Alongside the pairings of one group and one music creator, a Collaborate Pathway, allows two music groups to apply to work together with a matched music creator.
The Adopt a Music Creator 2022 pairings are as follows:
- Edgar Divver and Bedfordshire Woodwind Academy Flute Ensemble (mentored by Jenni Pinnock)
- Joshua Brown and Glasgow Orchestral Society (mentored by Ailie Robertson)
- Emily Peasgood and Oxted Band (mentored by Colin Riley)
- Dominic Matthews and Singing for Pleasure, Warwick (mentored by Jenni Pinnock)
- Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones and Voices of Exmoor (mentored by Lynne Plowman)
- Collaborate Pathway: Caitlin Harrison, Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra and Reading Youth Orchestra (mentored by Fraser Trainer)
Adopt a Music Creator is run by Making Music in conjunction with Sound and Music, the national organisation for new music, and funded by the PRS Foundation and Philip and Dorothy Green Trust.
Barbara Eifler, Chief Executive of Making Music, said:
“Adopt a Music Creator is a very special project, pairing professional music creators and leisure-time music groups for an experimental creative process. Yes, the result will be a piece written specifically for each group, but it’s not all about the end product: running this project under Covid-19 has highlighted how the journey is as important as the final concert, with groups and music creators endlessly inventive about how to connect, get to know each other and have fun exploring new sound worlds, even when inhabiting a mostly digital world.”
Hannah Bujic, Co-Head of Artist Development, Sound and Music, said:
“We’re thrilled to introduce the music creators and groups as they begin their time together on this unique, challenging and deeply rewarding programme. With uncertainties and challenges to ways of working continuing this year, there is ever more need for the dedication and imagination that the participants on Adopt a Music Creator unfailingly bring to the creative process. We look forward to joining them on their collaborative journeys.”
Although the pandemic has thrown up huge challenges to music making, leisure-time music groups and the professionals they work with have shown time and again how resilient and creative they are even under difficult circumstances.
Last year’s Adopt a Music Creator project went ahead as planned, with the selected pairings adapting to a new world of Zoom sessions and socially distanced rehearsals, soon to culminate in their much-awaited premieres. Read more about their creative journeys on the Making Music blog.
You can also hear a selection of new works created from the 2019/20 round of projects on BBC Radio 3 from 17 to 21 January, with one piece played daily following the Radio 3 in Concert broadcasts which begin at 7.30pm.
Find out more about Adopt a Music Creator on the Making Music projects page. For more information, contact Sally Palmer, Making Music Projects Manager, at sally@makingmusic.org.uk
Making Music
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Making Music, The National Federation of Music Societies.
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WOW! This was how I felt when first being told we had been accepted for this project and then followed by tingling excitement inside. Our little choir in the depths of Exmoor being involved in such an amazing project and to have our own song. Just awesome. And feeling very grateful to all the people who got us there.
Choir member, january 2022
I’m really looking forward to getting to know Voices of Exmoor, and to embark on the creative journey of collaborative music creation. Composing new music can be messy, beautiful, exhilarating and fun all at once, so it is a huge privilege to be working alongside choir director Amanda Taylor with support from award winning composer Lynne Plowman.
Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones – Music Creator
https://www.hannahfredsgaardjones.com
I’m really looking forward to meeting Voices of Exmoor, and to sharing your creative journey with you as you work with the wonderful composer and songwriter, Hannah Fredsgaard Jones. After the last couple of years, I think this will be just what we’ve all been craving – a chance to be together and to make something brand new and beautiful to share with the world!
Lynne Plowman – Mentor
http://www.lynneplowman.co.uk
As a newby to Voices of Exmoor I’m excited to be part of the choir at this point in time. What a brilliant opportunity to work co-operatively with both Hannah and Lynne and to have a unique piece of music composed specifically for us – and then recorded and played on radio 3! I’m really looking forward to seeing and hearing what comes out of the whole process.
CHOIR MEMBER, FEBRUARY 2022
Monday, 7th March 2022
Tonight we met Hannah and Lynne for the first time.
Over the previous few weeks we had been preparing four pieces from our repertoire that we thought would demonstrate our abilities and give them an idea of what kind of choir we are and what we can do.
Our creator and our mentor both introduced themselves before we started and then Amanda led us in some of our usual warm-up exercises.
Joining Hannah and Lynne in our ‘audience’ were some choir members who had not been able to attend for a while, as well as one or two very welcome new members. Following our four pieces, everyone joined with the choir, including Amanda, whilst Hannah led us in a short singing exercise based around a Danish folk song.
The evening ended with tea and delicious homemade cake, supplied by Amanda as a ‘thank you’ for our recent hard work and to give Hannah and Lynne the chance to mingle and to get to know us a little better.
Everyone agreed that our singing was wonderful and both Hannah and Lynne seemed to enjoy our performance. Amanda informed us afterwards that they had been very impressed with all of us.
We are all now looking forward to our workshop in April, not forgetting our usual Monday rehearsals, of course.
Choir member, March 2022
Adopt a Music Creator blog: Release and joy written by Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones
A New Day by Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones with Freedom Of Mind Community Choir
As a new member of the choir, I was excited to hear about the Adopt a Music Creator project, and was thrilled when we were told that the choir had been successful in its application. It is an amazing opportunity for a small, rural choir, and credit must be given to those who had the vision and belief in the choir’s ability, and put the choir forward for the project.
The year ahead for us promises to be challenging, rewarding and very enjoyable. I feel privileged to be a part of this unique and exciting project.
choir member, february 2022
Saturday, 9th April
The atmosphere was filled with nervous anticipation as we arrived on Saturday, 9th April to take part in a creative workshop with our music creator, Hannah.
We had to use our brains right from the word go, as even the warm-up involved singing and movement – at the same time! We learnt how to use visualisation to help with breath control and we became more relaxed as we began to sing and harmonise with each other.
Hannah explained how she had taken inspiration from the ideas collected from our first meeting a few weeks ago and she had already created the first few lines of a piece of music. We set to work learning it, phrase by phrase, and soon realised that we were singing something that had never been sung by anyone else ever before.
Following a short break, we rearranged ourselves into a circle. Hannah read us a passage of text and we were asked to make sounds for the different aspects of nature being described, such as the wind, the grass and heather, the birds and the peat stream. Hannah recorded the results and explained how we would be returning to it further on in the process.
Tables had been set up around the hall, each containing a different stimulus, such as images, text, questions and musical instruments, each designed to get us thinking about different aspects of Exmoor. We were then given time to move around and respond to each one.
By the end, each piece of paper was filled with ideas and Hannah had already found some phrases that we were able to sing to the melody that we learnt at the beginning of the workshop.
The whole session was enjoyable and very productive. As a choir, we really feel that we are a part of the creative process and that our ideas are being encouraged and listened to. We are looking forward to finding out what will happen next…
Choir member, April 2022
When I first heard we were having a workshop with our music creator I have to confess my heart sank, just a little…. Memories of previous workshop events I have attended came to mind, some I have to say more enjoyable than others.
This event however turned out to be a wholly entertaining day. We were in the safe creative hands of Hannah and Lynn, and although Choir numbers were diminished, mostly due to covid, all those present joined in the activities with vigour and a sense of fun.
We started the day learning Hannah’s embryonic melody, which I found myself humming in the following days. Next there were various tables with activities, questions and musical instruments for us to tinker about with, and by the end of the session Hannah had taken some of our thoughts and slipped them cleverly into her music.
We concluded our workshop with a few lyrics added to the music we had learnt at the start of the day, which left the feeling that we had all played a part, even if ever so tiny in the beginnings of our composition.
Choir member, May 2022
Monday, 20th June
We had an amazing turnout for our rehearsal with Hannah this evening. Although the song is still only in draft form, we surprised ourselves by learning and singing through all 9 pages!
Hannah was able to listen to how her composition sounds with real voices singing and there was time at the end for some immediate reactions and feedback from the choir – all positive, with some constructive suggestions for improvements.
Many of us went away singing the melodies and everyone seemed extremely happy with the direction our song is taking.
Choir member, June 2022
Tuesday, 31st August
Amanda was interviewed on The Voice local radio station in North Devon.
Saturday, 17th September
Open up to full screen to get the full effect.
Friday, 8th March 2024
The long-awaited performance of the choir’s ‘Over the Moor’ was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in Concert on Friday 8 March.
The piece was written for us by Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones after we were selected to take part in Making Music’s ‘Adopt a Music Creator’ and it was premiered in the Music Room at the Woolhanger Estate in September 2022.