Make It Real the Urban Cultural Programme for Canterbury and East Kent is about to launch a new initiative aimed at getting Mozart out of the concert hall and into schools, homes and nurseries. Jo Treharne explains the concept.
Nearly a quarter of a millennium ago a nine year-old Austrian boy was brought to Canterbury by his father to give a piano recital. The child in question was the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and now Canterbury is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of this musical genius with an innovative series of projects under the banner Mozart Now.
Mozart was in some ways the Hendrix of his day he was one of the first to master a new innovation in music the pianoforte and make it his own. He would play backwards, on top of the piano, and underneath it performing like a musical jack-in-the-box, a bundle of joyous energy infusing the instrument with life beyond its physical capabilities. He had a wild sense of humour and was a consummate entertainer. However, there has never been anyone before or since to compare with Mozart in terms of the combination of performance and compositional skills that he embodied which is why his work is still so relevant today.
I think that, given the chance, Mozart himself would have shunned the concert hall. He would have preferred open-air concerts, festivals and impromptu street performances. He would have headlined at Live 8. The product of an entrepreneurial and pushy father he was paraded at the age of five (together with his sister a kind of 18th-century Meet The Osbournes) at the courts of Europe to play for kings, queens, dukes and duchesses, travelling huge distances to perform to the gentry.
However, as soon as he was old enough, Mozart took his music to the people, appearing at public concerts, in houses and making money from teaching music. He was a crowd-pleaser, a performer who actively sought out his audience and engaged with them.
One of the aims of the Mozart Now programme is to demonstrate to new audiences the importance of Mozarts contribution to music and to break down some of the mis-conceptions about classical composers. A central tenet of the programme is taking Mozarts music out of the concert hall and into places where we can make it more accessible. Three specific projects within the programme are designed to achieve this: Mozart Media Net, 9 x 9, and Pramadeus.
Mozart Media Net will fuse new technology with musical heritage, in the form of a website providing accessible information, literature and supporting materials on Mozarts life and work and crucially, an interactive element including web games designed to engage young people and inject an element of high-tech fun. The website will also act as a diary to inform Mozart fans, old and new, about forthcoming events.
9 x 9 is a schools-based project, which will work with groups of nine year-olds in nine local primary schools to introduce them to the music of Mozart. Mozart was just nine years old when he came to perform in Canterbury, and the project will encourage children to engage with and enjoy classical music, and perhaps come up with a few compositions themselves. This will be a far-reaching project that will include other art forms, with dance, visual art and storytelling to bring the subject to life.
Pramadeus will work with local early years providers to engage the very young with Mozarts music. Peter Cook of the Big Bash Music Company in Canterbury is co-ordinating the project in schools and nurseries: Mozart could play the piano at the age of four and began composing at age five. By gently introducing children of this age, and perhaps even younger, to the music of Mozart we hope that they will enjoy and continue to find an appreciation of the music as they get older. Some of the performances will be by older children with particular musical talent, so children can see that the world of classical music does not belong only to adults.
Debra McGee, Project Director for Make It Real at Canterbury City Council says, Canterbury has always been seen as a venue for traditional classical performances. Our Mozart Now programme will find new audiences for Mozarts work by taking his music out of the concert hall and into the public realm through education and technology, as well as supporting our ongoing arts development programme by creating lasting partnerships between the community and local arts organizations.
Jo Treharne is Project Press Officer for Make It Real, the Urban Cultural Programme for Canterbury and East Kent, which is managed by Canterbury City Council. t: 01227 862527;
w: http://www.makeitreal.co.uk