I was very proud to see my youngest child performing along with others in his class in the Bath Festival in a free lunchtime concert of music written for children by Peter Maxwell Davies and Alasdair Nicolson, the Festival’s director. The two groups of songs were on the theme of shopping, in Kirkwall and Bath respectively. Accompaniment was on piano and for the Nicolson songs an ensemble from Wells Cathedral School, which occasionally obscured the singing (at least from where I was). I’d seen the words and music coming back in the school bag and it was a real achievement for them all to learn the songs from memory and deliver them confidently.
The concert also included a brass ensemble playing arrangements by Maxwell Davies of Tallis and Gesualdo (I recognised O Vos Omnes in the latter set).
The concert took place in St. Michael’s Without, and was well attended. (You are guaranteed an audience of parents at least, if you involve primary school children). It was in competition with the boilers and washing up from the church café; how much these interfered with the music depended on where you were sitting.