Apollo Music Projects have put together a lovely compilation of video clips showcasing some of the instruments and composers linked to their schools programme, and they have kindly made this available for everyone to use.  If you have had the project in your school then do send the link out to the target year group, though this would make fantastic listening material for any pupils and will help consolidate their knowledge and understanding of orchestral instruments.  Would work very well alongside the LSO Play web app.

Wigmore Hall – The Wigmore Hall’s Education team have also made available their Key Stage Concerts and accompanying resources (please note the resource packs are aimed at teachers, but families may enjoy using these at home also)

Key Stage 2 Concerts

Conductive Music – Music Production: on BandLab, Mondays and Wednesdays at 4pm, for Y4-8. Musical Video Games: on MakeCode Arcade, Tuesdays and Fridays at 4pm, for Y4-8. All sessions lasting 1 hour, held on Zoom (no cam, no mic, all questions on chat). Students can join at any time as instructions are shared at the beginning. Fully funded by DCMS, available to all students in our partner areas.

The Free tickets are on sale on Eventbrite. Students/Parents can register, will receive a confirmation email with a link to the online event page and the Zoom. For Music Video Production, visit here. For Music Production Visit here. 

HMDT – STEM Sisters celebrates the achievements, discoveries and stories of diverse historical female mathematicians and scientists using the arts to inspire primary school audiences, especially girls, with the stories of women who fought against the odds to pursue their flair for scientific enquiry, but whose pioneering work was so often unrecognised. Find out more here. 

English Touring Opera – Meet Ibn al-Haytham, one of the most important scientists ever to live. In this online, curriculum led opera we will delve into the great scientific discoveries of the Islamic Golden Age, discovering the beauty and mystery of light; what it is, what it does for us, how various it is, how it refracts and reflects…

Told through song, lots of fun, and practical experiments we join Ibn al-Haytham in making one of the most striking discoveries of all time – how we see!

Get in touch with Bradley at ETO if you want a FREE special Remote Learning Pack for use at home, with a teacher’s pack including 7 lesson plans with science, maths, history curriculum links and 3 short music lesson plans. More info here

The Why Books – Free online music lessons and podcasts brought to you by WHY Music. Here, you will find podcast episodes along with accompanying materials for you to download and use!

LSO – Lockdown Listening with Rachel Leach: A series of daily musical listening tasks for you to do at home – with your children, with your class or even by yourself. They are designed to be done with the minimum of preparation and equipment – often just paper and pens – and can be achieved in under 10 minutes.

Where’s Simon?

An online concert featuring Sir Simon Rattle and musicians from the LSO, recorded from home in lockdown. Trying our quiz, explore some LSO players’ listening recommendations and download the parts to play along yourselves during Part 2.

How to Build an Orchestra

Discover everything about orchestras and their instruments with our beautifully illustrated children’s book How to Build An Orchestra produced in association with Hachette Children‘s Group.

Click here to buy the book and to find free resources for young people and families at home, or teachers in school.

Space ….. But Not As We Know It

An online concert, presented by Rachel Leach and conducted by Jessica Cottis, featuring Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and music by Berlioz, Ives, Prokofiev and Haydn.

Find out what happens when an orchestra has to keep its distance! Rachel Leach explores the separation of sounds, how music travels around an orchestra and what you can hear between the notes. There are also warm-ups and listen and draw activities to get involved with, and free resources for teachers to download.

LSO Play – The award-winning LSO Play is a free interactive and immersive web app, allowing you to experience the LSO on stage at the Barbican – anytime, anywhere.

View the orchestra from four camera angles simultaneously, and switch between them during the performance. You can focus on anything from the tips of a drumstick to the violinists’ fingers. Find teacher resource packs for Key Stage 2 and 3 to use in classroom music lessons, Listening Activities for young people to do at home or in school, as well as masterclasses with LSO players and listening guides with information on the musical background

Choose from six performances, all filmed in HD during the LSO’s Barbican season.

Barbican Creative Learning – Beethoven in Nature: The Barbican Creative Learning team have put together some musical activities with musician Paul Griffiths for you to try out, inspired by composer Beethoven’s love of nature. Find out more about Beethoven, learn some songs with Paul, and make your own music inspired by nature.

Music For Youth – Following on from the success of Create your own musical Soundscape, part of The Future is Now LIVE in December 2020 (which MfY recommend you watch before starting the new workshops), the Soundscape Stories series will help your class, group or young person gain the skills they need to create their own soundtrack by covering a different element of the creative process.

Over the four weeks, participants will learn about:

  • Rhythm
  • Melody
  • Structure: Telling your story with a graphic score
  • Create: How to bring it all together, rehearsal & recording

At the end of the series, everyone will have the opportunity to create and submit their own unique soundtrack based on their chosen theme or narrative. Submissions will be displayed in a virtual showcase in late Spring/early Summer 2021.

London Sinfonietta – Composition Challenges invites young people, teachers and schools to create new music for the London Sinfonietta inspired by the works and musical ideas of living composers. Suitable for KS2/3 students, each challenge will explore the work and approach of a different composer, support curriculum learning and help young people to engage with creative composition. Available online, the Composition Challenges are designed to be easy to use, flexible and open to everyone, from complete beginner composers to those with more experience.

BBC Bitesize – Lots of fantastic activities for KS2 available on the BBC Bitesize page here. Plus vast resources on the BBC 10 Pieces site.  A lovely collection of films introducing each of the pieces (and there are now several sets of 10 Pieces so lots of works to get through!) plus lesson plans.  The plans are designed for teachers but do try following them at home too!

Twinkl – Learn about different instruments, musical notation, composers and the history of music with these resources for Key Stage 2 students. Featuring worksheets and activities on famous musicians, musical genres, music vocabulary, and the rhythm, as well as music-themed classroom display resources. Learn more here

Music Chrome Lab is a website that makes learning music accessible through fun, hands-on experiments, making connections to science, maths, art and more:

Mr Spoerer’s Jam Bus Tutorials – For anyone with a keyboard at home, or even access to a keyboard app (you’ll need the black notes too!) then check out Mr Spoerer’s Jam Bus Tutorials – he is creating these right now so more will go up over the coming weeks.  The Jam Bus is his super cool music ‘classroom’, a decommissioned bendy bus donated to the South London school by none other than Mr Ed Sheeran himself, and then converted into a music classroom/studio via massive amounts of crowdfunding.  Take a look here

Mr Scullins Music Room – YouTube Channel, check out his household items Samba tutorial here

Myleene Klass’ is offering online music lessons – see more on YouTube here

Explore more online resources here