Our Golden Thread for this year’s Young Leaders Camp is ‘Music so Powerful it Influences Change’
We’ve been exploring this idea in a myriad of different ways throughout the camp; by supporting leadership in our music sectionals, analysing video clips of both ourselves and others, by discussing what a powerful performance might look like and exploring how we can harness our individual and collective power to create positive change through our music making.
Extraordinary things are within our grasp’ - [quote from Simi, a Sistema England mentor, in his welcoming speech]
On Monday the whole camp explored these ideas together in a big Thought Collective session. Here’s some of the thinking we did together…
We are also growing our own Power Tree on a wall outside our main rehearsal space. As each individual contributes to the tree it grows to form a symbol of our collective power. The TRUNK celebrates all the skills and abilities we already have. The BRANCHES are the areas in which we need to grow or develop. The FALLING LEAVES are things we pledge to offer others. The ROOTS are where we reflect on what learning we will take from our week together.
The Music teaching team have done some fantastic performances for the young leaders and have been doing exciting work in their sectionals.
We’re also scheduling 1:1 mentoring and coaching sessions for those who want them, offering free chamber music sessions where the young leaders are encouraged to explore, create and make music autonomously without too much input from their teachers.
On Thursday all the older musicians met together for another Thought Collective session to explore their hopes, dreams and fears for the future and to discuss how they can harness their power to make positive change for themselves and others.
Our comms team has been busy interviewing the young leaders throughout the week. Each day we have been picking apart an element of our collective mission and exploring what it means to us. You can read the interviews for each day below:
Day 1 – Making [with Jess, Elhana, Courtney and Kayleigh]
Day 2 – Music [with Yabsirra, Lily, and Miecha]
Day 3 - Power [with Keiran, Eric and David]
