Tuesday, 18 May 2010
St. Michael’s First school in Alnwick held a Caribbean week to give their Key Stage 2 children a taste of what life is like in the Caribbean Islands. As part of that week they asked our band, Stix ‘n Trix to perform to the whole school and to give workshops for the rest of the day to all their key stage 2 children.
We started off the day, after unloading instruments from Mrs Davison’s horse box and setting up in the hall, by giving the whole school a concert which included the steel band playing traditional Caribbean music, such as “Island in the sun” and “Mambo”. Then Abbie introduced other instruments and the band played their favourites that they had been practising in school – “James Bond”, “Batman” and others. The small children in the audience were swaying along to the music and their smiles told us that they were enjoying themselves.
Our pupils then held half hour workshops for groups of key stage 2 children to show them good techniques of playing steel pans and taught them to play a range of pieces. Their teachers were very complimentary about our performances and thanked us for providing their pupils with a valuable experience.
Back to school at the end of an exhausting day, and all band wanted to do was play some more!
