LEARNING

Alongside composing, and my work at the RCM, I maintain an active schedule as an educator, working with amateur musicians and young people.

Below, you’ll find details of several composition projects with which I've recently been involved as a workshop leader.

Get Composing at sound Festival 2020

For sound Festival 2020 I led composition workshops for young people, based in North-east Scotland and aged 11+. You can read more about Get Composing, including a composer's Q&A page, on the attached link.

Glasgow Cathedral Education Project 2019

Alongside Andrew McTaggart, I led GCF's first large-scale education project, bringing together pupils from Anniesland Primary School and Dalmarnock Primary to compose and stage a new work based upon Mozart's Requiem.

Go Compose! at sound Festival 2018

Alongside Laura Bowler, I was lead composer and workshop leader for sound festival's annual 3-day composition course for young composers and creative musicians aged 14-19. You can find out more, and hear some of the students' work, on the attached link!

Red Note New Music Makers 2017-2019

During 2017/18 and 2018/19, I worked alongside Red Note Ensemble as Workshop Leader for their New Music Makers Project: an initiative in which students from across Glasgow and Ayrshire schools created new compositions, culminating in a concert performance by Red Note musicians. The project was announced as Community/Education Project of the Year at the Scottish Awards For New Music 2018.

Sound and Music Summer School (2015 – Present)

For the past five years, I've worked as Assistant Composition Tutor at the annual Sound and Music Summer School, at the Purcell School in Bushey. The summer school is a week-long residential course for young composers and creative musicians aged 14-18.

Composer-in-Residence, Handel House Museum

From 2014-2015 I was Composer-in-Residence at Handel House Museum. As CiR, I devised and led weekly music education workshops with school groups (from primary to A level), and piloted Baroque Central – an initiative which encouraged creativity, composition and singing in inner-city London primary schools.
From 2015 - 2018 I continued to work on the Baroque Central Project as a freelance Animateur.

Giove in Argo – London Handel Festival / Handel House Museum

In collaboration with the London Handel Festival and Handel House Museum, I worked over a period of several weeks with a class of GCSE students at the Ursuline Academy, Ilford to compose and stage a new opera, in response to Handel’s Giove in Argo.

A link to the final performance can be found on the attached link.