Three Massed Ensembles from across the country head to the Royal Albert Hall for the annual MFY Proms event.

“Music for Youth provides life-changing performance experiences for young people of all backgrounds and musical abilities. Our large-scale Massed Ensemble performance projects showcase regional partnership working at its best, with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion, innovation, and good practice in teaching and learning. I’m really excited to hear the culmination of these inspiring and unique projects!” – Judith Webster, Chief Executive, Music for Youth

Three Music for Youth (MFY) Prom concerts, traditionally held at London’s Royal Albert Hall each year, are the culmination of the MFY season and showcase high-quality performances from some of the UK’s most creative, innovative and energetic young musicians.

Massed Ensembles are large-scale collaborative performance projects from different areas of the UK that support innovation, inclusivity, ambition and good practice, which showcase the successes of local partners and organisations working together, on a national stage.

These events are one of the cornerstones of the MFY Proms, and involve around half of the 1,000 young musicians who perform each night. This year, the programme champions young people with special educational needs and disabilities. (SEND)

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is working in partnership with three music education hubs – SoundStorm (Bournemouth and Poole), Southampton & Isle of Wight – to form one of the largest, and most varied Massed Ensembles ever.

To commemorate its 125th anniversary in 2018, BSO will be performing a special arrangement of a new commission in partnership with SoundStorm and composer James Redwood.

BSO is hosting two SEND schools as part of the Massed Ensemble, which include members of the National Open Youth Orchestra project, the world’s first disabled-led national youth orchestra.

2018 marks Leicestershire Schools Music Service’s (LSMS) 70th anniversary, and they will be performing a new commission by composer Fraser Trainer who has been working creatively with musicians and schools this year, incorporating their own ideas into the performance.

The piece has an emphasis on bringing together young musicians from diverse genres and cultures, incorporating Indian instruments, western classical instruments, steel pans and voice.

Players and singers worked in partnership leading up to the event with the Philharmonia, lyricist Hazel Gould, sitar player Roopa Panesar and professional Indian classical musicians from Darbar Arts Culture Heritage Trust.

Fifty percent (around 300 young people) of Oxfordshire County Music Service’s (OCMS) Massed Ensemble will be SEND instrumentalists and singers, working with special schools and youth arts organisations in the local area as part of a buddying project in which there will be workshops (led by OCMS) to bring both mainstream and SEND musicians together.

Part of the OCMS performance will be a new composition with melodic and rhythmic themes written by the students themselves and conducted by John Lubbock, founder and conductor of Orchestra of St. John’s and staunch advocate of bringing live music to children with SEND.

Website: mfy.org.uk/MFYProms
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Info:

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, SoundStorm Music Education Agency, Southampton Music Hub and Isle of Wight Music Hub
Project: Symphony 125
Date of performance: Monday 5th November

Leicestershire Schools Music Service
Project: Legend of the Sky, The Griffin of Griffydam
Date of performance: Tuesday 6th November

Oxfordshire County Music Service
Project: Together
Date of performance: Wednesday 7th November

Music for Youth

Founded in 1970, and celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2020, Music for Youth (MFY) is a national youth music charity that provides free opportunities to both perform and experience live music, for over 60,000 young people aged 21 and under annually, through an annual season of nationwide festivals, concerts and tailored projects.

MFY offers young people the opportunity to perform live in a supportive, non-competitive environment as part of festivals and events across the UK, celebrating and supporting the breadth of music-making by young people both in and out of schools and music hubs. MFY stages a series of free concerts, performed by young people for young people, providing first-hand experience of live music- making.

Major Sponsors National Education Union, Royal Albert Hall
Sponsors Vivendi, PPL, Musicians’ Union, Unity Trust Bank, Trinity College London
With funding from Arts Council England, Department for Education, Creative Scotland, Department of Education for Northern Ireland.

For more information, please visit mfy.org.uk/mfyproms