Yamaha Education News

Coventry's Class Band in a class act with YolanDa

Pictured here: 90 of Coventry's Yamaha Class Band musicians who began learning in play their first combined concert at Warwick Arts Centre after just five months of learning together

Double MOBO winner and Yamaha artist, the sax player YolanDa Brown, joined 90 Coventry 12-year-olds on 22 June for the first performance of the Yamaha Class Band whole-class wind band project being piloted in three Coventry secondary schools, in a partnership between Yamaha UK and Coventry Performing Arts Service. The Class Bands began learning together only five months ago and impressed the audience, which included visiting guests and VIPs, with their playing.

Pictured here: Yamaha UK's Class Band ambassador, YolanDa Brown, has fun helping a beginner Class Band sax player to improvise, at her Warwick Arts Centre workshop

After the morning concert, which also featured some excellent primary school whole-class 'Wider Opportunities' (WO) groups from Coventry's primary schools, YolanDa led a workshop, teaching the Class Banders a blues, performing with her keyboard player, Ayo Johnson, and giving an inspiring presentation about her career so far and some of the top artists she has performed with. YolanDa, who is the UK's Class Band ambassador, will work with the Class Band project as it continue to grow, to help inspire these young musicians.

So far the project is running in three Coventry secondary schools, Barrs Hill, Lyng Hall and Blue Coat schools. In the Autumn two more Class Bands will begin in Coventry and Staffordshire Performing Arts will also join the project, launching Class bands at three of its schools.

Background to the UK Class Band pilot

The UK's music education system has been the envy of the world for many years but is now under threat by yet another governmental restructure of the English education system, this time possibly removing music altogether from the compulsory curriculum. The schools inspection service, Ofsted, has highlighted the early secondary school music curriculum as a weak point within the nine year curriculum, which has been mandatorybetween 5 and 14 for many years.

One problem is that, apart from some excellent whole-class 'Wider Opportunities' (WO) instrumental learning which has been provided free to 8-to-11-year-olds, learning to play is accessed by only 17 per cent of school aged students, leaving a massive 83 per cent without access to local music service instrumental lessons. As young people's aspirations in music has grown, with the increase in availability of high-quality recorded music of every genre, their practical skills haven't been able to keep pace because learning to play for most young people remains either inaccessible or something which happens outside the music curriculum.

A growing number of secondary music teachers is frustrated by this and the Class Band project has made learning to play, as a band with one's friends in the music classroom, a 'cool' and exciting classroom activity for Coventry's new Year 7 Class Bands which have begun the first pilots this year.

Enquiries are welcomed from music services and schools across the UK which are interested in Class Band. For further details, please email Bill Martin

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(Posted: June 2011)