Live the Experience!

Hallé at the Bridgewater Hall (Photo: The Hallé Concerts Society)

Research carried out by the Association of British Orchestras (ABO) shows that professional orchestras in England reached around 250,000 children and young people in 2007/08 in more than 400 concerts.

Based on the figure of around 623,000 children in each school year, these results indicate that two-fifths of children had access to a live concert experience. These statistics are contained in Live the Experience, a report commissioned by the ABO about the provision of concerts given by ABO orchestras in England for school children and young people.

Performing live to every child

The ABO exists to support, promote and advance the interests and activities of professional orchestras in the UK. Its member orchestras include symphony orchestras, BBC and chamber orchestras, and orchestras from the opera and ballet companies. In April 2007 the eight Arts Council England-funded symphony orchestras published Building on Excellence - a 10-year mission statement in which they declared an ambition to perform live for every child during their time at school. This would mean offering every young person the opportunity to experience a full orchestral performance.

The orchestras’ ambition is based on the belief that hearing a live orchestral performance can excite, inspire and encourage children and young people to develop a lifelong love of music and music making. In addition, the opportunity to experience a full orchestral performance should be an essential part of music education, complementing the music curriculum and as an adjunct to the work of music teachers and local authority music services.

Analysis of the Arts Council’s Taking Part survey (http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/takingpart) confirms that being encouraged to engage in the arts when growing up has a significant impact on the chances of being an active arts consumer as an adult, even when a range of other socio-economic factors have been taken into account. The effect of childhood experience is very strong – almost as strong as the effect of education – suggesting that parents may be as important as the education system in determining whether children grow up to be interested in an engaged with the arts. Attending a live orchestral concert is certainly a potentially life changing experience.

Mapping existing provision

As a first step to meeting the ambition, the ABO commissioned a survey to map existing concert provision across all its members in England for the season September 2007 to July 2008. 51 orchestras were surveyed, and the response rate was 100% from the symphony and BBC orchestras, and just under 50% from the chamber, opera and ballet orchestras. We aimed to build a picture of activity through case studies; to gather further information about planned additional activity and new initiatives for 08/09; the location of concerts; concert programmes; and the orchestras’ delivery and funding partners. The 2007/08 data provides us with comprehensive information which will serve as the baseline against which we can measure the fulfilment of the ambition over 10 years.

The report is specifically about professional orchestral performances for, and with, children and young people. It is not about the wider range of orchestras’ education and community work, with children, young people and adults from all backgrounds; work that takes place in a variety of settings, which involves small groups or individual musicians working on projects and which can provide in depth learning and engagement for the participants over a longer period of time. This would be a much larger and in-depth piece of work, which although important, is not wholly relevant to this particular ambition to offer opportunities to experience orchestral performance.

Key findings

Recognising that orchestras present their concerts for school children and young people in different ways, we set out an initial definition of concerts which included concerts for schools, concerts in schools, family concerts, and mainstream concerts which offered tickets for schoolchildren and young people. Respondents also provided us with other models - for example, concerts that are the culmination, or starting point, of school composing projects and concerts where the young musicians perform ‘side by side’ with orchestral musicians. As well as requesting information about the type of concerts, we asked orchestras for details of the numbers of tickets sold against the number available; the costs involved for schools and orchestras and any additional activity provided.

We recognise that the orchestras will not be able to fulfil this ambition on their own, so we asked about partnerships. We wanted to find out who they collaborated with in terms of delivery and who were their funding partners. Many orchestras work with their local authorities and music services, schools, music academies, venues, community music organisations and in some instances with artists supporting theatre and film elements of the concerts. The report lists a wide range of funding partners which broadly fall into six categories: Arts Council England and regional offices; local authorities; charitable Trusts and Foundations; Individual donors; corporate sponsors and venues. 87 venues are listed which cover the main concert venues in England, plus a number of churches, theatres and leisure centres.

Several orchestras target their schools concerts at particular Key Stages, the most popular being for Key Stage 2 and Upper Key Stage 2. For all schools concerts the orchestras provide preparation which includes visits to schools by small groups of musicians, some INSET training for teachers, workshop activity for children and teachers, and all supported by information and resource packs.

Orchestras supplied data about ticket prices for their schools concerts, family concerts and concerts where there were concessionary prices for school groups, children and young people. The total number of concerts for which prices were provided was 292. Of these 292, 32% were offered free to schools and young people, eight concerts were funded by business sponsorship and 10 were funded by grant income. The average price charged was £2.58 and 101 concerts were priced £3 and under, not including the free concerts.

Achieving the ambition

In 2008/09 an extra 55,000 tickets will be available. Additional activity for 08/09 includes young orchestral musicians performing before the concert and being entitled to free concert entry to hear the rest of the programme; schools concerts aimed at Key Stage 3; presenting concerts in new venues; working with new partners; extending the offer beyond the orchestras’ home cities and in some cases doubling the number of concerts offered to schools.

Access to live orchestral concerts is concentrated predominantly in urban centres. We recognise the inherent challenges in trying to achieve the ambition of reaching every child, particularly those who live in rural communities, not only in geographical terms but also in terms of additional investment that may be needed to cover the orchestras’ time for preparation, travel and performances, building partnerships and providing resources for teachers and schools.

A steering group set up to manage the project has made a number of recommendations that stem from the results of the mapping survey. They would like to see the level of activity maintained and developed by orchestras over the next eight years with a mid-term evaluation in 2012 and a final evaluation in 2017. They recognise that this has to be contingent on public and private investment being maintained. They also recommend more partnership working, in particular with local authorities and schools, and they see the need for strategic leadership to pool resources for the benefit of all children and young people.

Live the Experience has backed up what we anticipated: orchestras are already providing thousands of opportunities for children and young people to experience live orchestral concerts in a wide variety of venues and locations throughout England. By mapping the wide range of ABO orchestras in England we have learnt that 20% more opportunities to hear a live orchestral concert were planned for 2008/09. The ambition continues to be a 10 year vision that started in April 2007 – and already they are nearly half way there. And with strategic partnerships within the orchestral sector, the support of the wider education community and the backing of local authorities and funders, there is every chance that their ambition will be realised.

Fiona Harvey, Education Consultant
Association of British Orchestras
20 Rupert Street, London W1D 6DF
T. 020 7287 0333
www.abo.org.uk