00:00With budget for creative arts tight across education in the UK, one North London school has teamed up with an orchestra to share space, creating more funding and projects to work together.
00:14I spoke to teachers and students of the school in North London.
00:18It's great fortune in 2020, we're approached by an organisation called the OAE, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, who are an internationally famous period instruments orchestra, who happens to be looking for some premises and happens to be looking for a new phase for their own for their own work.
00:34And we now work side by side at Ackland Burley School and proud to have as core strategic partners, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
00:41And they bring with them not only their history of excellence in terms of international performance of these particular types of music, but also their own educational pedigree.
00:55The school went up to Edinburgh as well to kind of showcase that.
00:59Can you, yeah, what was that trip like?
01:01Well, it was extraordinary, really.
01:03So one of the projects that they'd followed had been a collaboration with our dance department.
01:09And the chief executive of the orchestra was meeting with the internationally famous choreographer, Kim Brandstrup, one day.
01:16The chief executive said to the director, what about using and commissioning a piece that involves some of our children?
01:25There was an experimental version to Bach's Double Violin Concerto two years ago.
01:30It received fabulous reviews and was a superb piece.
01:33And then this evolved following some very strict auditions into a piece that actually led, not on the fringe,
01:40but on the main stage at the Usher Hall at the Edinburgh Festival on the 20th of August.
01:45It was really extraordinary.
01:47It was led by, it was participated in by the orchestra playing on the stage with five of our current students.
01:54Some of them as young as year nine, 14 year olds, two of our former students and then four professional dancers as well.
02:03And so there's this lovely educational metaphor as the dancers were evolving through it.
02:08And then you saw the real pros.
02:10Well, there were some pro dancers and then you saw the majesty of the orchestra, the Age of Enlightenment playing on the stage.
02:17It was a glorious, glorious occasion.
02:19Edinburgh was amazing.
02:22At first I was like, Edinburgh is going to be cold, rainy, wet.
02:26But when I went there, it was this beautiful place, mountains, forests.
02:31And the crowd there when we actually started performing was amazing.
02:35I mean, I feel like when you're dancing and there's no crowd there, obviously you have energy.
02:39But when the crowd's there, it just it takes the whole performance to another level.
02:42So it was amazing.
02:44I'll be honest with you, the crowd didn't like, it didn't surprise me because I sort of, I prepared myself for it a bit, which I don't mean to sound cocky, but like it was still like amazing, you know, seeing all the beautiful faces in the audience.
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