Children attending a junior school in Basingstoke were handed a dream opportunity recently, as they were invited on to the Royal Albert Hall’s stage to sing.
The children are all pupils at St Mary’s Junior School, which is located in the Old Basing part of the town, and they were among 400 children from Hampshire taking part in the Ten Pieces concert organised by BBC Music.
Having become one of 240 champions in the BBC Ten Pieces competition, the Music Service for Hampshire County Council has been partnering with thirteen primary and junior schools to develop the piece they would sing, with the recent show being the culmination of those efforts.
The Ten Pieces event was created to be a national initiative that 21,000 schools would take part in, with BBC performance groups and BBC Learning overseeing it.
Its purpose is to encourage this generation of youngsters to explore classical music, by showing them how it can help to spark their own creative ideas.
They were given a choice of ten different pieces and then asked to work on an interpretation using a combination of digital art, dance and composition, in addition to performing it. A George Frideric Handel piece was the one selected.
Families of the pupils will be able to use full colour printing in Basingstoke, if they want to keep quality pictures of the concert.
