The Music Workshop Company Blog 

Each month the Music Workshop Company publishes two blogs. One blog, written by the MWC team addresses a key issue in Music Education or gives information about a particular genre or period of music. The other blog is written by a guest writer, highlighting good practice or key events in Music Education. We hope you enjoy reading the blogs. 
 
We embed multimedia content in many of our blog posts, if you have rejected cookies for this website, you may have white spaces where the multimedia content should be. This is due to a recent change of policy by YouTube, Spotify and other platforms. We are in the process of updating all our posts. If you come across white spaces in a blog post, you can open the link in another browser or private browser and approve cookies to access all the content. We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes. 
 
To contribute as a guest writer please email Maria@music-workshop.co.uk 

Posts from April 2023

Back to recent posts

The vital cultural legacy of the BBC Singers and BBC Orchestras

Posted on 28th April 2023 at 16:02
BBC Symphony Orchestra of London rehearsing for the Last Night of the Proms. 
 
Image credit: Steve Bowbrick, used under creative commons licence. 
If you’ve been following the news recently, you may have heard about some proposed cuts to the BBC’s orchestral music provision – including changes that would see a number of its salaried musicians made redundant. The proposals would have seen the BBC Singers, the UK’s only full-time professional chamber choir, scrapped. Further proposals, which received less public attention, included a 20% reduction in funding for the BBC’s three England-based orchestras: the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and the BBC Philharmonic. 
 
The announcement sent shockwaves through the UK music world, with many organisations leaping into action to campaign against the cuts. 
 
Here at the Music Workshop Company, along with others across the sector, we firmly believe the BBC Singers and the BBC’s orchestras are vital for inspiring young musicians. 
Read more

The life and work of Ethel Smyth: a trailblazer for women

Posted on 14th April 2023 at 12:27
Photo credit: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress), restored by Adam Cuerden 
22nd April 2023 sees the 165th anniversary of the birth of Dame Ethel Smyth. Smyth is perhaps best known as the composer of the March of the Women, which became the anthem of the Women's Social and Political Union, part of the Suffragette movement.  
 
She was a radical, outspoken character who was not afraid to go against the grain – openly bisexual in a period where society was far from accepting, and battling to gain recognition as a female composer in a profession dominated by men. 
Read more

Archives

Designed and created by it'seeze