2024 News Updates
We are delighted to share highlights of our year with you!
October 2024
After five incredible years, our current Foundation Director, Laura Gardiner, will be moving on in mid-November to begin a new chapter returning to her teaching roots.
March 2024
The Mini Sessions Return!
Our upcoming Spring Term Mini Sessions are as follows…click the links for more details!
Preparing Orchestral Parts for Non-Professional String Players with Alex Laing
Creative Teaching for Instrumental Teachers with Rachel Cooper Violin
All sessions are recorded and available to watch back for 6 months, so you can register even if you can’t join live.
March 2024
Earlier this month, we spent a brilliant three days working at the Music Hall in Aberdeen delivering our Aberdeen Benedetti Sessions, the furthest north the Sessions have travelled!
Following a super opening day with 13 primary schools from across the city joining us for music workshops, we then welcomed just over 300 young string players from across Scotland (and a wee bit further too!) for a weekend of workshops, experiencing the joy of collective music making. A group of 25 string teachers also came along and took part in a series of professional development sessions.
Weekends like these don’t happen on their own. It’s a huge collaborative effort to bring everyone together and we’d like to say a big thank you to all those involved in making the Aberdeen Sessions come to life!
Thank you to our Tutors and Ambassadors, the Pastoral Staff and Volunteer Helpers, the team at The Music Hall Aberdeen Performing Arts, all the teachers, music services and organisations who supported their students to attend, all the families involved, the funders including The Wood Foundation, Aberdeen Endowments Trust and Creative Scotland who enable these workshops to be affordable for all, the BF office team and finally to all the young people who took part.
March 2024
We are so thrilled for our Founder and Artistic Director, Nicola Benedetti, who has announced she is expecting a baby in May.
Huge congratulations and much love from all of the Foundation team
March 2024
At the beginning of March we travelled to Northern Ireland for our second 5 day Residency in partnership with Education Authority Western Region Music Service.
During our week in NI, we worked with approximately 1,450 young people across 9 different schools, as well as 45 classroom teachers and hundreds of young string players and their teachers.
Well done to all the inspiring young people and staff who took part, and a huge thank you to Arts Council Northern Ireland for your continued support
February 2024
Did you know that since our first sessions in January 2020, The Benedetti Foundation has brought music education to over 75,000 people in 105 different countries?
Many of our activities and programmes are completely free or heavily subsidised for all young people, students and teachers thanks to our generous supporters and partners - we couldn’t do what we do without you.
“I am in awe of the foundation and your commitment and dedication in making music accessible to all. Thank you and don’t ever stop!” - Parent
Help us on our mission to bring music education to all by becoming a Friend or Patron today.
February 2024
“The children were engrossed during the full session. It was really engaging and interactive the whole time” - Head Teacher, Victoria Primary
To bring a busy January to an end, our Residency Sessions teams travelled onwards from West Sussex, all the way up to Scotland to spend a week with the schools, teachers and young musicians in Falkirk.
Working in partnership with Falkirk Instrumental Music Service, during the first four days, our inspiring workshop leaders Lucy Drever & Calum Huggan delivered music workshops in 9 primary schools as well as a high school for young people with additional needs and very excitingly, our first ever workshops in two different nursery settings.
We then spent a wonderful day with the instrumental teachers as Joelle Broad and Arlene Macfarlane lead a day of professional development sessions for the team there - and what a fantastic team they are!
The Residency concluded with nearly 90 beginner string players joining together at Bo’ness Town Hall for a day of mass music making.
February 2024
A beautiful photo from ALEX ORROW PHOTOGRAPHY of a participant enjoying our Adult String Day in Surrey at the end of last month.
Thank you again to all who joined us, and to our inspiring Tutors and Ambassadors as always.
Our next Sessions for adult strings are:
Saturday 17 Feb - Cheadle Hulme (last day to register Friday 9 Feb!)
Saturday 25 May - Glasgow
Sunday 21 July - London
January 2024
Our Residency Session team travelled from Stockport to West Sussex for the 2nd week of the Spring Term in partnership with West Sussex Music.
Over three days the workshop team visited nine primary schools, sharing the joy of music participation with just over 1400 young people. For the final two days 54 instrumental teachers who work both for West Sussex Music, or privately in the local area, joined us for an afternoon of professional development sessions with Rachel Cooper Violin. We talked and shared so many ideas about creativity in teaching - a joyous afternoon.
To close, 101 beginner string players joined together from across West Sussex for a mass strings day. And what a day it was! Fantastic focus, energy and engagement from everyone!
Thank you to the super team at West Sussex Music for your collaboration, the funders including Arts Council England and to our Workshop Leaders, Tutors and Ambassadors for a wonderful week.
Photo: Murray Clarke Photography
January 2024
Adult String Players Days: Surrey and Cheadle Hulme
Registration is open for our next two Adult String Days in Leatherhead, Surrey (27 Jan) and Cheadle Hulme, Stockport (17 Feb).
Both days take place from 11am-4pm and are open to Intermediate & Advanced adult string players.
Join us as we explore two beautiful pieces of music: Grieg’s Holberg Suite 1st mvt and Florence Price’s Adoration (arr Tom Poster) and have lots of fun with a supportive community. All welcome.
£30 participation fee and FULL bursaries available to anyone who needs this - just tick the box on the sign up form.
More info and register here: www.benedettifoundation.org/adults
We hope to see you there!
January 2024
Happy New Year
As 2024 arrives we’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has been a part of the Foundation’s work last year.
Thank you to all the participants and your families - this year we’ve had the joy of working with just over 24,500 people across all our programmes.
Thank you to our inspirational team of Tutors and Ambassadors, the wonderful Guest Artists who have joined us for various projects and our dedicated admin, tech and support teams.
To all the organisations, music services, music charities and venues who we have had the pleasure of collaborating with this year, thank you for your partnership, and to the volunteers who give up their time to support our work, we are so grateful to you.
And finally, our heartfelt thanks goes to the incredibly generous donors who enable our programmes of activity to continue to evolve and grow and ensure our work remains accessible to as many people as possible.
We really couldn’t do it without you all. Thank you for a wonderful year and we look forward sharing 2024 with you.
Happy New Year from The Benedetti Foundation Team