Relief as workshops beat the lockdown

Nicola says she is grateful to have delivered three music workshops before the lockdown commenced.

She was in Dundee from March 6-8 for the Benedetti Sessions, delivering tutorials to young people and teachers.

It followed on from similar events in Glasgow and London in January and February, although three more planned for Antrim, Manchester and Saffron Waldon have had to be cancelled.

“How phenomenal is it that we got three full sessions, working with thousands of children and hundreds of teachers before all of this happened?” she smiled.

“I feel the timing was so fortunate that we got it all in before everything closed down.

“We’d been working towards this format and schedule for more than a year, so for us, I don’t know what we would’ve done. It would have been the most deflating period, which I’m sure lots of other people have felt, so we’re grateful we got it in before it all happened.”

Across the three weekends, the Benedetti Foundation reached almost 3,000 young people and 200 teachers, ranging from nonmusicians to beginner string players and the most promising young musicians.

Participants attended from across the UK, from Shetland to the Isle of Wight.

In Scotland, there were young musicians from 30 of the 32 local authorities with 81% state educated in Glasgow and 70% state educated in Dundee.

“It surpassed all of my expectations,” she added.

“I thought that trying to do something so ridiculously large in scale for the first time would mean a lot of things would go wrong, as it was just me and one other person pulling it all together.

“But we didn’t start or end a single session late, we delivered everything we wanted to, and some of the testimonials we received massively surpassed my expectations with the most overwhelming responses.”