recent & past projects
A Fanfare for Milngavie • Bringing Back Music
September 2021
A new collaboration between the Music School of Douglas Academy, Milngavie Music Club and McOpera Outreach was launched on the final weekend of September in a socially distanced performance with an invited audience of club members and parents.
Delivered by McOpera Outreach, this inaugural project was presented as a side-by-side concerto opportunity for string players and pianists at the school, with additional creative arts work experience opportunities in presenting to camera and stage management.
Creative work experience opportunities for the main school were an integral part of this project, and two students from the Douglas Academy media studies and music courses were coached in script writing and presenting to camera by Hugh Macdonald.
The filmed performance was released on YouTube in early October. This was viewed by music club members still uneasy at returning to live concert attendance and the wider public to share the club's outreach activity and see the resulting positive impact on the health and wellbeing of these local young musicians in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Aiming to expand Milngavie Music Club's current programme of events and create a strong collaborative partnership between audiences, professionals and young musicians via blended live and digital delivery, the project was supported by Chamber Music Scotland's Transition Fund and the East Dunbartonshire Arts Council.
The programme was repeated on September 25th to a socially distanced audience at Music at St Cyprians in Lenzie, funded once again by the CMS Transition Fund.
"It was wonderful to hear live music again and to realise that the next generation of performers, and hence the next generation of teachers, are in good health in spite of all the difficulties of the last 18 months or so!" (Audience members)
Recorded by Mark Neal Music www.marknealmusic.com
A Song for Haddo - 2021
October 2021
A Song for Haddo returned to the Haddo Arts Festival 2021 in a creative response to the ongoing challenges of the Covid pandemic, ensuring that the children and young people of Aberdeenshire had the opportunity to perform together.
Written by Peter Kemp, A Place to Play is inspired by Haddo House and its ethos of using music-making to bring people together. The house itself was for many years the family home of June and David Gordon and was always buzzing with artists and musicians practicing and preparing for the huge productions which happened there each year. It has also been a place where generations of children and families have lived and ‘played’ in their own way, whether inside the house or in the grounds.
The project launched in August in New Deer, Rayne North and Udny Green Primary Schools and culminated in a live visit in class bubbles to Haddo House where the children were taken by guides from the National Trust for Scotland to explore the ‘secret' spaces and childhood haunts of Haddo House featured in the songs.
A Place to Play was filmed and recorded live in social-distanced 'bubbles' in Haddo Hall, conducted by professional baritone and vocal specialist Andrew McTaggart and accompanied by 5 professional musicians from McOpera.
Each participating school was given an individual link to a filmed recording of ‘their’ song, and this trailer performance was premiered on October 15th 2021
A Place to Play was recorded by audio engineer Mark Neal and funded by the Udny Community Trust Company and The People’s Postcode Trust.
A Place to Play will be performed in its entirety at the Haddo Arts Festival 2022 by the children of New Deer, Rayne North and Udny Green Primary Schools joined by the children of Haddo Voices. The orchestra will be formed of young musicians from the surrounding local Academies, professionally mentored by instrumentalists from the McOpera Ensemble with Andrew McTaggart.