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What We Do And How We Do It
Our range of activities and our culture is designed around 5 interlinked concepts to help our members have a lifelong engagement with music.
Confidence
Our activities are designed to help musicians become more confident so they can express themselves on their chosen instrument. Confidence comes from developing musical skills in an encouraging environment. It's important that musicians can perform without fear and can be comfortable in executing their musical ideas. This also helps develop confidence in a broader sense.
Knowledge
Our activities and resources are designed to help musicians develop their understanding of their instrument and music in general.
Groove
Music isn't just about technical knowledge and developing skills. It's also about the joy and emotion that music brings.
Together
This means to work as a team and develop skills which can be used in other aspects of developing musicians' lives. This results in ensembles becoming 'tight' and able to play with accuracy and energy. 'Together' centres around:
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Vision: everyone understanding their role and what the aims of ensemble/learning are
Respect: we all support each other. That means preparing properly, attending and being on time for sessions and helping each achieve
Fun: there's a reason you 'play' and musical instrument and not 'work' one... it's meant to be fun!
Achievement
Our culture is to aim for very high standards and for individuals to get real sense of satisfaction by fulfilling their potential. Success will mean different things for different musicians and our activities are designed to give everyone the opportunity to succeed in their own way. Simply participating in music is really valuable for young people in so many different ways but our culture is to take that a step or 2 further. We aim to help musicians create really high quality music that they can feel proud of. Preparing our musical material with an attention to detail and care leads to great concerts and a wonderful feeling of achievement.
An example of our dedication to high level performance would be the YMF Jazz Orchestra 'Music For Youth' performances in 2018. 'Music For Youth' involves thousands of young musicians performing at annual Regional Festivals throughout the UK from which a much smaller number are selected to perform at the National Festival in Birmingham. From there a very small number of ensembles are selected to perform at the Royal Albert Hall in the Music For Youth Proms. Our Jazz Orchestra was the first ensemble from York to be selected for the Music For Youth Proms in decades. Here's the Jazz Orchestra's performance at the Royal Albert Hall.
Our Range Of Activities
Our 5 key concepts are achieved through the provision of the following activities and resources:
