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You can support our ongoing education work by donating to our fundraiser, so that we can continue to give opportunities to the young people of Hastings and the surrounding area.
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YOUTH ENGAGEMENT
Hastings International Piano offers an extensive range of Youth Engagement Opportunities alongside Piano Festival, Competition, and throughout the year.
RE-ENGAGE! Workshops
25th/26th May and 8th/9th June 2021
Hastings Piano is working with Matthew Sharp, baritone, cellist and animateur, who the Times dubbed ‘Virtuoso of the Arts’ in an exciting project that will bring music back into the lives of local school-children.
After months of cultural lockdown we have devised a series of workshops with Hastings Academy, Ark Alexandra, St Leonard’s Academy and St Richard’s College that will aim to re-engage the pupils with music and performance.
The live, face to face sessions will use singing, rhythm and body-percussion to explore improvisation and warm-up techniques all designed to help the young musicians feel more confident about performance and composition.
Free tickets
During our two week festival, we offered hundreds of free tickets to many of the festival concerts as well as a wide range of workshops, school visits and inspirational talks from the international artists.
Arts Council Funding
We are proud to have won Arts Council funding to support our youth engagement offers, with further support offered by the Magdalen and Lasher Charity and The Isabel Blackman Foundation.
FREE Songwriting Masterclass with Guy Chambers
During the festival we hosted a free youth Songwriting Masterclass with Brit Award winning songwriter Guy Chambers, which took place at the White Rock Theatre, Hastings on Wednesday 26th February, ahead of Guy’s evening concert.
Kids Concert Company
The Kids Concert Company hosted a free interactive piano concert for 7-11 year olds and their families, on Sunday 8th March at St Mary in the Castle.
OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH THE NATIONAL YOUTH JAZZ ORCHESTRA
In the lead up to the 2020 Piano Festival, Hastings Piano hosted a series of inspirational workshops with NYJO Associates in three local secondary schools: Hastings Academy, Ark Alexandra and St Richards. This work has been made possible by the generous support of the Isabel Blackman Foundation.
Each school received 3 visits from a group of NYJO practitioners who worked with children of varied musical ability, developing young musicians’ skills and musical confidence. At the end of the project the children from all three schools joined together for a massed rehearsal ahead of a concert/sharing session for other students. These workshops will address the fundamentals of jazz performance practise such as; feel, ensemble skills and improvisation. All young musicians learnt melodies by ear, explore harmonic possibilities and gained confidence improvising.
Further engagement projects will be announced soon.
For information on future projects please email info@hastingsinternationalpiano.org
