Partner Post is a series of blog posts written by our project partners, showcasing the impact of collaborative co-producing.

Marianne Barraclough, Deputy Chief Executive: Programme at Sinfonia Viva, shares her experience of collaborating with Orchestras Live when lockdown struck in March 2020 and the final performance of our School of BaROCK project as part of Classically Yours, had to be cancelled.

Like many other arts organisations, the last 11 months have thrown us into a new world as we work to rethink and reimagine how orchestral experiences can continue to happen when musicians and communities cannot meet in person. It came as a shock to us all in March 2020 when, on the brink of a sharing performance that would celebrate the hard work and creativity of our School of BaROCK project with three schools and Bridlington Remarkable Rock Choir in the East Riding, we suddenly had to cancel everything as the country entered lockdown.

After some determined conversations with Orchestras Live and East Riding of Yorkshire Council, we realised the only way was digital. The possibility of James Redwood, the music leader, visiting the schools in the summer term proved impossible, so we digitally repurposed all the material that would have been in the live performance. This felt like the right thing to do, but also meant that there were six different films to be made involving over 100 people and was more challenging and time consuming than we had anticipated.

Over the summer the orchestra recorded the music so we could then move online and reconnect with our participants. Through a series of online workshops for the choir and schools, participants rehearsed the music and prepared to record their performances. Finally, just before Christmas, we shared their efforts in a celebratory online event. We are delighted to share the final film publicly too, so that participants – and hopefully a wider audience across the country – can enjoy and sing along to the new pieces they created, inspired by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons:

The major learning with this project was the importance of keeping an open mind, having honest conversations with partners and an endless willingness to change plans. We also benefited from the learning Orchestras Live was able to share through experiences with their other partners across the country in the same position as us.

Remaining flexible is always something we strive for – but was certainly tested to the limit during this project, which, instead of eight weeks, ended up spanning the entire year. Young people in schools were not allowed to sing in school during the Autumn term adding a further challenge, which we overcame by asking the digital choir to learn all the songs and using Makaton signing for the young people to perform.

The feedback received from participants reinforced how important they felt finishing the project was. Levels of engagement and enjoyment were high and participating in the digital choir sessions and sharing event had a positive impact on the participants’ wellbeing. We were delighted with the virtual sharing performance – it felt as close to a shared culmination of a project as we have managed since March 2020.

This project has taught us so much about responding, reshaping and remaining totally flexible in the face of an unknown and constantly changing scenario. We could so easily have given up and said it simply wasn’t possible, but the connections we had made with the community were strong and the brilliant songs they had written really deserved a performance.

The strength of our long-standing partnership with Orchestras Live and East Riding Council, and the overall participatory, audience-driven focus of Classically Yours enabled us to collaborate with the musicians, participants and schools to work out the very best way to complete the project and enable participants to perform their music with Sinfonia Viva, albeit in quite a different way than we had originally envisaged.

Partner Post is a series of blog posts written by our project partners, showcasing the impact of collaborative co-producing.

Marianne Barraclough is Deputy Chief Executive: Programme at Sinfonia Viva where she has led the creative and education project work for over 15 years. She is passionate about creating opportunities to inspire young and older people alike by working closely and creatively alongside professional artists. Marianne is Chair of Governors at Tower View Primary School and is a trustee of Tom Dale Company.

School of BaROCK was a project in partnership with Classically Yours, East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Orchestras Live, Remarkable Arts and Sinfonia Viva. Participants were from Bay & Martongate Primary Schools in Bridlington, Kings Mill Special School, Remarkable Rock Choir Bridlington and Stamford Bridge Community Choir. You can read more about School of BaROCK on Sinfonia Viva's website here.