Bishop Wilson School sing 'Why do we Hate?'
Bishop Wilson School
Thank you to Bishop Wilson C of E Primary school in Craig Croft, Solihull for learning and recording the song 'Why do we Hate' for their assembly during anti-bullying week. Your singing sounds great guys....hope the assembly goes well!
Whitnash Primary School
So very excited to be invited to a performance of our show The Aliens have Landed this afternoon by the children of Whitnash Primary School in Leamington Spa. Good luck everyone!
Marvelous performance by Yew Tree Primary school
I had the great privilege of being invited to a performance of Paradise Island recently at Yew Tree Primary School in Solihull. The Year 3 and 4 classes had worked on the show for a one-week arts project and were looking at ways in which the Earth's resources are being depleted. The subject of Paradise Island deals directly with this issue and enabled the children to explore the themes through acting, singing and dancing. The final performance to parents and the other puils in the school was really stunning - the children performed the songs with confidence, and the acting was very professional with clear dialogue and confident performance. Well done everyone!
Recent events in the UK
Hi everyone,
With the shocking and saddening events that have taken place in the UK recently, I have been aware of the need to discuss the whats and wherefores with my own children. They have asked me so many inquisitive questions regarding religion and faith, nationality and the causes of conflict throughout the world, and I have realised that many other children would be asking the same questions of their parents and teachers in schools as my daughters were of me.
When Tony and I began writing together, our main aim was to produce material that would engage with young people and allow them to use our shows as a spring-board to discuss some very important issues, such as the environment, bullying, and especially world conflict. Many of our shows, including The Dogtown Fire, Perfect Worlds and Reach Out and Touch address these issues, but in a child-friendly way so that young people can understand the meaning of conflict, hatred towards our fellow humankind, and especially the plight of refugees in the world. Our shows are designed to engage and inspire young people to get talking, and hopefully make our world a better place! Check out our shows and they will hopefully inspire your children to reach out and touch! Thanks for checking into www.up4itmusic.com.
Say hello to up4itmusic - Musicals with Meaning
Hi everyone.
We are really proud to announce that our new site up4itmusic is now up and running. You can check out the sort of stuff that Tony and I have been writing for years and have now finally got around to publishing it ourselves. You can see that the shows can be bought in various forms - a hard copy with CD is great if you want the tactility of a copy to work from, or you can download your own via our site and print it out yourself. I have been privileged to write with Tony for many years - we started writing together back in 2000 when we were both on a schools' residential course together and we agreed that the musical material the children were performing was totally unsuitable for the age range of the children, and didn't really address any issues that affected them. So we decided to have a go at writing something ourselves, and our first attempt, an environmental musical called The Last Rainbow, was received warmly by teachers and pupils alike, and gave us the impetus and confidence to keep writing musicals with meaning ever since. We have been lucky to have much bigger commissions sent our way that allowed us to write more larger-scale works giving Tony the opportunity to explore more sensitive and deeper issues through his brilliant libretti such as in Ten Tribes, The Visitors and Reach out and Touch; the latter addressing issues of conflict and resolution brought about by the Twin Towers disaster, and enabled me to compose music using full symphonic forces and a large choir of five hundred children and adults with soloists. Our works have been performed many times in Birmingham Symphony Hall and in London's Royal Albert Hall as well as abroad in France and Romania. It is with great pleasure that I announce the publication of our shows to you and hope that you will join us (and purchase from us, of course) as we continue to write musicals with meaning for many years to come.
All the very best...
Ian Blick