Hello!
Thanks for taking an interest in my collection of music chosen for entering/leaving assemblies or worship in Primary schools.
The inital prject was inspired by this tweet:
Has anybody already built up a small repertoire of powerpoints with key music pieces and summaries for use coming into assemblies?
— Michael Tidd (@MichaelT1979) July 8, 2019
…which got me thinking that I could create a useful resource out of this.
The PowerPoints then followed, available via the link in the menu above, along with this website.
It is all still a work in progress, with just under 100 files completed. There will be 195 PowerPoint files once they are ready – one for every day of the school year.
When selecting pieces of music, I\’ve tried to remain with relaxing, peaceful pieces, but have sometimes been tempted by more upbeat compositions!
Diversity is something I\’ve attempted to work with too, but it\’s hard to avoid the fact that a lot of these feature old, dead white men. I\’m working on that, researching as much as possible to find hidden gems, little heard of female or non-white composers. Florence Price was such a find – her glorious first symphony being a new favourite of mine.
I\’m also incorporating recurring themes. There are plans to include:
- Vivaldi\’s Seasons
- Talbot\’s Once Around The Sun (a piece for each month)
- Holst\’s Planets (with additions for Earth and Pluto)
- Patron Saints Days with appropriate music, for each of the 4 countries of the United Kingdom
- Rossini, who was born on 29th February
- a chunk of Rachmaninoff for no other reason than it is Rachmaninoff
The posts will feature an image of the composer (usually – Scarborough Fair and Scotland The Brave are exceptions) or, in one case currently, a video of the composer performing the piece. They also feature information about the composer and the work in question where I can fit it in. The PowerPoints have audio files which should play automatically when showing the file as a slide show. The website versions will use YouTube videos.
I am quite biased towards my favourite pieces and composers, obviously (see Rachmaninoff, above – Russian composers really speak to me for some reason).
I acknowledge that none of the music is my own and I do not intend to infringe anyone\’s copyright. The music here is solely used for educational purposes and intended for use in schools across the UK.
I hope you find this body of work useful and exposes you and your children to some new music.
