We’re delighted to update you on our transformative and uplifting Harmonise programme, which took place earlier this summer with four classes across three schools in Greater Manchester!
The vision was to bring together refugee and global majority* musicians with primary school children from many backgrounds in an engaging space; to be inspired by personal stories, increase understanding the effects war and conflict has on humanity and share engaging songs from artists’ backgrounds … with the children learning and producing their own songs in different languages!
The programme was carefully designed with session aims and schedules in the lead up to a live audience performance at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester during Refugee Week, but there was still lots to discover as the children’s ideas would direct where the programme went.
And so the journey began…
“Harmonise is a project where we come together and introduce children to music from around the world, and we teach them to write songs as part of a process to get them to feel more empathy with what refugees and displaced people are going through.” – Ellis, Harmonise Facilitator
The message was very much at the heart of our planning which included a diverse team of creatives who acted as important role models for participants and brought their skills…including beatboxing and rapping! Click here to find out more about our amazing team of facilitators.
The aims covered many areas such as celebrating refugee cultures, improving the well-being of children and teachers, creating positivity and inclusivity through music, raising awareness about challenges refugees face, and to create new pieces of music in response to the children’s own ideas.
The schedules were put together to bring out the creative juices of the teams and eight sessions covered languages, how music makes us feel, learning songs and instruments, discussions on refugees and safety seekers, and rehearsals.
We even included a celebration session allowing children to feedback about what they learned, and every child achieved an Arts Award certificate from Trinity College London.
Through the programme history we received so many glowing responses from our participants:
“The project made me forget about the stress of SATS … we learned never to give up … songs make us feel relaxed … (and) … we learned to work as a team!“ – Harmonise participant
And this year’s 2024 programme was no different (following the 2023 ‘Youth Music Evaluation Report’ by culture consultant Sally Fort which reported Harmonise increases well-being of all children involved by up to 250%), with participants feeding back before and after the project.
Before the 2024 project over 50% of participants (103 children) said they were either ‘not sure’ to ‘not very good’ at music at all. After the project a parent said “I have noticed such a change in my son since you started the music, he is much more confident.” and a Headteacher went on to say “The kids have loved it. The musicians are so talented. We have really benefited from the project. I would highly recommend it!“
The performance was also inspiring for children in the audience, comments included “as a result of this I will try and take care of the environment”, “what surprised me most about the event was the man who did a backflip and half flip” and “my three words to describe how I felt here are ‘amazing, inspirational, remarkable!”.
All the hard work by the team led to the anticipated performance at The Bridgewater Hall during the annual Refugee Week in June, where hundreds of people were to attend including primary school children, teachers, parents, and wider local community (including safety seekers).
Enjoy our photo gallery from The Bridgewater Hall rehearsal and performance…
The centre stage welcomed over 100 Greater Manchester primary school children performing to an audience of over 600, facilitated by an outstanding team of professional musicians from across the globe with traditional songs in Amharic, Farsi and Zulu alongside original songs written by the children, inspired by refugee stories.
“This week’s Refugee Week, the message we are giving is that a refugee is a human being and we should all be kind. We learnt about people from around the world, how they feel and their tradition. The song ‘Ngunda Azaili Mutu’ means a refugee is a person like anyone else, they can be anyone they want to be!” – Harmonise participant
During the programme, original songs the children within the groups produced included:
‘Spring is Here‘ – with the lyrics “Friendship is as beautiful as spring, Love is a spirit caring for us”… telling the wonders of humanity for kindness and togetherness.
‘Open the Door‘ – containing the lyrics “We all have someone we love, Or have to leave behind, That’s why it’s important to always be kind”… highlighting the meaning of love and appreciation for others.
Another written song was gently expressed by a participant:
“We wrote a song called ‘Fate Hope’ and it’s been really fun doing that, eventually our fate throughout our life, we should hope for great things to happen.”
Thank you so much to The Bridgewater Hall, schools, musicians and wonderful children who participated to make our Harmonise Manchester 2024 programme so incredibly joyful and meaningful.
Bookings are open for Harmonise Greater Manchester, London and Brighton & Hove 2025! Please get in touch if your school would be interested in taking part, and if you’re in a different region we’d still love to chat about what we might be able to offer. Email hello@musicaction.org to find our more.
*The term ‘global majority’ refers to people who do not consider themselves or are not considered to be white. We use this term because it challenges the dominant narrative of “minorities” and better reflects reality – people in the global majority make up 85% of the worlds population.
Harmonise Manchester 2024 was supported by The Bridgewater Hall, Arts Council England & Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
“When you work together with love
you can achieve anything.”
Amir, Survivor
