Kids get chance to ‘explore music’ during Orff Children’s Day at BU
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/04/2018 (2826 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Dozens of students from Manitoba and elsewhere gathered for a day of music and dance on Friday for the annual Orff Children’s Day event at Brandon University.
Representing schools from as far as Birch River, Swan River, Austin, Rivers, Oak Lake, Hamiota and Moosimin, Sask., 135 Grade 5 students from across Westman, Parkland and Saskatchewan took part in a day of workshops, taught by expert clinicians from Brandon and Winnipeg, learning everything from the recorder and dance to choral singing and percussion.
“It’s just a fun day to explore music with other like-minded kids,” said Marla Fontaine, a music teacher at École Harrison and the local co-ordinator for Children’s Day.
Sponsored by the Manitoba Orff Chapter, Children’s Day centres around the work of German composer and music educator Carl Orff and Gunild Keetman, whose philosophy is based on improvisation and using play to teach music, Fontaine said.
This year’s theme was “Back To The Future: An Intergalactic Exploration” and throughout the day, students rotated between five workshops, ending the event with a group session to share what they had learned.
Students were hand-picked by their teachers, Fontaine said, based on how keen they were to learn and if they were up to the challenge of a day’s worth of workshops.
The event also gave teachers an opportunity to observe each workshop and pull different ideas and techniques that they could bring back with them to the classroom.
The event was also sponsored by Kuipers’ Family Bakery and Sobeys, and the BU School of Music offered its space at no cost.
“This day lights a fire in our kids,” Fontaine said. “They get to spend the day with expert teachers and students that love music as much as they do, and they bring that enthusiasm back to the other students. It just builds leaders in our students.”
Eleven-year-old Alyssa Newitt, a Grade 5 student from École Harrison, said she was looking forward to the activities that were planned that day.
Alyssa, who used to play the violin and is now learning the piano and recorder, said she enjoyed getting to spend time with her friends from other schools.
“It engages you, because you have so many different instruments and you learn different parts with everybody else,” she said.
Her classmate Zachary Redekop, 11, who has an interest in playing both the guitar and the recorder, said the day had been fun for him, adding it was different than what he had been doing at school.
“It’s really fun learning stuff about music,” he said.
» mlee@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @mtaylorlee