We are delighted to announce a unique and creative new LMN project.
Award-winning composer Kerry Andrew is collaborating with LMN musicians based at 18 care homes, to draw ideas and inspiration from hundreds of older people. Over the course of 12 months, we will deliver nearly 300 music sessions, from which Kerry will create powerful new music. The finished music will be performed at festivals in the summer of 2017.
Who is involved?
Composer Kerry Andrew won a British Composer Award in 2010 and 2014, and is a leading light of the contemporary music scene. She was on the Live Music Now scheme with vocal ensemble Juice between 2007 and 2010. She specialises in vocal music and opera, choral music, folk, jazz, and community music, which has been heard on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, 6Music, Classic FM and on national news channels (more details below).
Hundreds of older residents at 18 care homes in Gloucestershire, Shropshire and Lincolnshire will be taking part in the process.
18 specialist LMN musicians will be leading activities at those homes, working in pairs. These include Sadie Fleming, Julia Turner, Zeb and Sam Hayes (Paper Horse) and Rachael Eliott and Beatrice Newman (Laurent Quartet) in the South West; Harry Orme and Tom Hawthorn (Steppin’Out), Michael Tinker and Ella Sprung (Bright Season), Chloe Saywell and Stephenie Leung in the North East; Katie Foster and Ali McMath (Project Jam Sandwich), Ruth Hopkins and Joe Bronstein (K’antu), Jess Hall in the North West.
The main project partners are the Orders of St John Care Trust and Creative Inspiration Shropshire CIC (more details below).
The project is supported and funded by Arts Council England, The Rayne Foundation, CHK Charities, Macfarlane Walker Trust, Waynflette Trust, Millichope Foundation and Evan Cornish Foundation.
How will the collaboration take place?
The selected LMN musicians have received specliaist training in music for people living with dementia and the use of digital technology (including ipads) in care home settings. Working in pairs, they will lead 8 music workshops at each of the 18 care homes. Each visit will involve a participatory performance for all the residents in the home, together with a seperate more interactive and informal session to generate ideas for the collaboration. This is a total of nearly 300 sessions.
Using a range of technology and percussion instruments (seen below), LMN musicians will draw ideas and stories from residents, which will all be recorded. This material will be used by the musicians and Kerry to create new music, which in the first instance will then be performed back to (and with) the residents, to refine and develop it. This will take place over the course of 12 months, by which time, Kerry will have created the finished work.
What will happen with the completed music?
The finished work will be performed at Cheltenham Music Festival, Shrewsbury Folk Festival and Barton Arts Festival in Summer 2017, and also at the participating care homes. It will also be recorded, and made available online.
Why are we doing this?
Every year, LMN musicians deliver thousands of music sessions for older people. Working with partners such as the Royal Society of Medicine and Care England, we know that music interventions have measurable health and wellbeing benefits, including for those living with dementia. But old age should also be a time of discovery and creativity, and people in care homes should not be excluded from the wonderful art being created today. This project shows how this can work in practice, across generations, creating vibrant and relevant new music.
“I am passionate about creating music in collaboration with community, the most rewarding of my work to date; building a relationship with community creators and generating highly meaningful work. I see myself as a facilitator, using the stories, words, fragments of melody, sensations, to create a coherent artistic work with their ideas at its heart. Working with Live Music Now on this more long-term project will give a voice to an overlooked part of our community: our elders, combining many of my interests: storytelling, vocal music and theatre, and expanding my experience in music technology and film.”
– Kerry Andrew, Composer and LMN alumna
“Our first visits last week were really exciting. We met lots of interesting residents at each of the two care homes, and have explained the project to them and the staff. We sang many songs together, and played them some of our own music, and started to get a feeling what they like. We gave them ipads and percussion instruments, and had a really creative time. This is the start of a brilliant journey for us all. I can’t wait till next week….”
– Julia Turner, LMN SW musician
For more information contact LMN’s Strategic Director for Wellbeing, Douglas Noble: [email protected]
Details of the main project partners
Kerry Andrew is a freelance composer, performer and writer based in London and was on the Live Music Now scheme with vocal ensemble Juice between 2007 and 2010. She specialises in vocal music and opera, choral music, folk, jazz, and community music. Choral and experimental work has been heard on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, 6Music, Classic FM and on national news channels. Andrew’s choral works have been published by Oxford University Press and by Faber Music. Her vocal trio piece The Song of Doves concluded the national memorial service for the victims of the 7 July bombings, receiving national broadcast live on the BBC and other news outlets.
She won a British Composer Award in 2010 and two more for her chamber operas ‘Woodwose’ and ‘Dart’s Love’ in 2014. She was 2010-12’s Handel House Composer in Residence. In 2014, she wrote a piece for for 600 young musicians, performed at the Schools’ Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in November.
In addition to her composition work, Andrew is a member of the ensembles Juice,[3] DOLLYman and Metamorphic. She also performs as a solo alt-folk artist under the name You Are Wolf.
‘Stunning‘ Classic FM
‘Brilliant, Berio-like vocal effects…‘ The Time
The Orders of St John Care Trust (OSJCT) was established in 1991. It is a not for profit charity sponsored by the Sovereign Order of Malta and The Venerable Order of St John.
OSJCT’s core activity is providing care for older people of any background, irrespective of race or religion. Having started in Lincolnshire, running 16 former local authority care homes, the Trust now operates 68 homes and 15 extra care housing schemes, across Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. Employing some 4,000 staff, OSJCT cares for over 3,500 residents.
OSJCT is dedicated to delivering the highest quality, person-centred care. Its broad range of services includes specialist nursing and dementia care. It also provides intermediate, respite and day care. Its ethos of care, which underpins all its activities, is based on its belief that all older people living in its care homes should be given care, both material and spiritual, that suits their individual needs, and should enjoy life in an atmosphere of warmth, harmony and understanding, being cared for by people who appreciate their need for privacy and who will respect their dignity and freedom of choice.
OSJCT works in partnership with local authorities and other stakeholders to ensure that residents and staff can live and work in a modern environment and can benefit from the latest care aids, equipment and technology. OSJCT is committed to providing the best possible training opportunities for our staff in terms of their career progression and personal development.
Creative Inspiration Shropshire CIC was established by Dr Jane Povey, a GP who was becoming increasingly frustrated at how little is on offer in communities to support wellbeing and resilience.
Their social mission is to grow individual and collective wellbeing and resilience in Shropshire through the creative arts. They do this through providing high quality participatory creative arts programmes for the more isolated and vulnerable in their community with a focus on impact, reach and sustainability. Examples of groups of need served include people in care homes, hospitals, hospices, mental health services, community centres and schools. They work in partnership with Live Music Now to source high quality, well supported musicians.
Their wider vision is to evolve a replicable framework for social prescribing and community resilience. Their approach is rooted in the community, connecting, inspiring and enabling individuals to thrive and communities to flourish despite what life throws at them. They do this through partnerships, commissions and projects, facilitating approaches aligned to the 5 ways to wellbeing: connect, be active, take notice, keep learning and give. This wider work includes arts for health but also other creative approaches e.g. leisure, physical activity, heritage, ecological.
Each programme is tailored to the need of the participants and evaluated through outcome measures relating to benefits to the participants (within categories of connect, wellbeing and resilience) and to funders (health, care, educational and other outcomes) as demonstrated by theory of change. In this way they are demonstrating the necessary impact to evolve the sustainability of their vision and social mission.
Through this approach they are growing a tribe of likeminded people in and beyond Shropshire, contributing to a social movement to grow community resilience through creative and collaborative means and facilitating the evolution of social prescribing policy and strategy.
