Volunteering for a Good Cause

In previous blogs I have mentioned the Irish Chamber Orchestra's (ICO) outreach program called Sing Out with Strings.  Every Thursday morning I volunteer for this program at a Limerick primary school to help teach music to children aged 4 to 12. We are a diverse group of teachers, including an Australian, Japanese and another Canadian like me!  

When Sing out with Strings began six years ago it encompassed one school and just a handful of children, but now it comprises three elementary schools and over 300 students.  Remarkably, this program has grown through government grants, corporate sponsorship and private donations.  The schools themselves contribute very little financially to the project.

Sing out with Strings operates in marginalized, regeneration areas of Limerick where many of the schoolchildren come from underprivileged backgrounds. The program inspires social change by enriching the lives of students through musical activities constructed to improve cooperation, coordination, listening, memory, creativity, respect and a sense of community.

All the children take part in class singing sessions and violin lessons three days a week.  As violin teachers, we go into a class for 20-30min to teach group activities and short individual lessons.  There is an after-school orchestra for interested students who wish to perform at ICO functions.  In addition to weekly classes, there are occasional "Meet the Musician" sessions, such as with the Venezuelan Percussion Ensemble, which help expose children to a variety of music genres and professionals.

The program also contains a unique group composition element facilitated by a community musician (who happens to be a previous graduate of my course).  Children are encouraged to work together to come up with a theme, melody and lyrics for a song.  The composed pieces are played by the school orchestra, and even arranged for and performed by the ICO. This assisted song-writing is the type of activity I am learning about in my course.  One day this could be my profession!

If you want to read more about Sing out with Strings, visit the ICO website at  http://www.irishchamberorchestra.com/community-engagement/sing-out-with-strings/.  There is also a video on the page of the kids performing Pirates of the Caribbean with the ICO!

Besides meeting many new teachers and children, volunteering for the ICO has given me the opportunity to see all their concerts for free! I've attended a couple now, the first featuring a lively Finnish violinist named Pekka Kuusisto and the second including Phillip Glass's Symphony No 3 and Dvorak's Serenade.  The other violin teachers also invited me to a one-day violin workshop with an award-winning Swedish violin teacher back in September.  It is great to pick-up some new violin teaching ideas!

Tomorrow my roommates and I are planning to celebrate a belated Thanksgiving.  Check back to find out if I can successfully bake a pumpkin pie!

All the best,
Shannon