Big Noise celebrates its seventh birthday
Success of kids’orchestra has astounded Raploch
A group which has brought music to Raploch will celebrate its seventh birthday this weekend
The Big Noise Orchestra was founded as a social action programme aiming to boost the life chances of the children taking part.
Children from Raploch have embraced the idea, and the orchestra has been lucky enough to perform at the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games and Ryder Cup - and made the trip to Venezuela last summer.
To celebrate the success of the Big Noise, a birthday concert is taking place at the Albert Halls on Sunday, to allow crowds to hear how the children are progressing.
The concert takes place at 4pm, and there are 100 free tickets available from the Albert Halls booking office on 01786 473544.
Director of Sistema Scotland Nicola Killean told our sister paper the Sunday Mail that forming the orchestra had been a challenge initially, but people in the area had welcomed the plan from the early days.
She said: “We had a threemonth community engagement programme and an ensemble f rom the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra put on a concert in Raploch. The next day the musicians started to work with local primary one to three children. We fast-tracked P3 kids on to string instruments so we could form an orchestra and show the community how it felt for their child to be part of it.
“The reaction I got was, ‘ This is a great opportunity and something we didn’t have growing up’.
“We chose musicians who are great communicators and down to earth. They performed outside the post office and bingo halls, at football clubs. We had this whole schedule to present ourselves to the community. We had to sell ourselves.
“At the end of the community engagement we hired a marquee for the first performance of the Big Noise string orchestra. It was the last day of the school term and people said ‘The children don’t really go to school on the last day and you won’t get people coming,’ but we had a full marquee. We opened a summer school on the Monday and had a queue out the door and round the building of kids wanting to register. It was amazing.”
Nicola added that the longevity of the programme is the reason why it is getting such good results for kids.
She said: “It’s both the music and longevity of the programme, the fact we are able to work with these children for three or four nights a week over years. We see so many changes in the children in terms of behaviour and confidence.”