Our Work in Schools

Meitheal - traditional music summer school held annually in Limerick for musicians aged between 13 and 18 years [more details...]

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Musicians from different musical backgrounds research local music and culture as part of a wider creative team with school children across Berkshire. Pupils learn through ear based and instrumental tuition whilst using source material from their own research to co-create new music for local performances including schools concerts, village halls theatres and festivals.

Our latest project is being commissioned by West Berkshire’s local authority cultural services dept and joint funded through it’s contribution to the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Gael Music will be at the heart of this project working with the local music service to deliver the participatory and professional elements of the project.

Collaborating with young people from rural communities to develop their particular strengths in the arts and culture. Delivering instrumental tuition, co-producing musical works, leading participatory performances and recording, with young people, interviews with older members of the communities to jointly explore our forgotten local traditions.

Our creative team also works separately to develop this unique locally sourced material to feature in professional shows and public performances that draw on local and national archives. Stage costumes and a commissioned animations also help to provide audiences with a concurrent view of locally recorded history and a culture spanning half a millennium.

The source music that serves as inspiration for our work come from a range of styles and ethnicities reflecting Berkshire people as a whole. For example, some tunes that have evolved alongside the commonly termed, ritual dances of England. The misnomer that these dances, whose name is derived from the word, Moorish, are of Arab-Spanish origin, is as prevalent as the idea that they descend from ancient folk rites. For example, the idea of the Mummers Play and the Sword Dance, as aspects of the same primitive rite, chimes with our concept of rural popular culture as being communal and timeless. In reality, the earliest records we have of royal revels including Moorishes are from the 1500’s. Its origins are placed more in the aristocratic and courtly context. As these courtly spectacles were adopted and subsequently taken over by rural communities as part of their ritual year, music played an integral part.

Meitheal 2011 Finale...