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The wonderful Cheryl has blogged about her work with Yew Tree and St Michaels Academy 

There are times in the life of a composer when you walk into a new working situation – new faces, unknown expectations, talents and enthusiasms yet to be unearthed – and from the very moment you meet your new collaborators there is mutual trust, rapport, laughter, creativity, music-making of an exhilarating nature. It has been thus since the new year with the year 6 students at St. Michael’s Academy in Flanshaw, and our work together came to a temporary halt this week with performances of our new songs of the River Calder to each other after several sessions of composing, instrumental work and singing. We’ll resume our musical journey after Easter – I can hardly wait!
We began by exploring rivers in general and composing our musical rivers. You can read about the story of that day here:


From this first session, I could see and hear that they were going to be full of creativity and eagerness. We got on like old musical friends. They were always happy to try new things, take on suggestions for improvements to their work, full of ideas of their own. They considered my interesting trousers something to be enjoyed rather than scorned. I have had the best of terms!
They worked on small group compositions of parts of the River Calder (their local river in Wakefield) – the estuary and confluence being particular favourites of 6B, while 6C’s river-features-of-choice were the flood ponds and the wildlife therein. Here are a couple of their compositions:
One group decided to do the whole river after all!
Video Player
Another focussed on the ocean and managed to insert some actual musical notation into their score!
Video Player00:00Use Left/Right Arrow keys to advance one second, Up/Down arrows to advance ten seconds.00:28
I also composed each class a song – one about the flood lakes and “navigations” around Wakefield, and one about the mills that used to use the power of the Upper Calder. The students in each class contributed lots of the lyrics for the verses of the songs as well and composing their own incidental and accompanying music. 
Rushing, gushing, rushing, gushing over rocks and crags and boulders, boulders, crags and boulders
Splashing, dashing, splashing, dashing, squeezing through chinks and crannies, chinks and crannies
Dancing, prancing, dancing, prancing, pirouetting, twirling downwards, twirling downwards,
Flowing, slowing, flowing, slowing, channelled to a lake then a water race, racing, racing..

Rattling, crackling, rattling, crackling, all the chains and ropes are crashing, lashing, chains are lashing.
Clanging, banging, clanging, banging, all the cogs and gears are turning, churning, gears are churning.
Bashing, smashing, bashing, smashing, grinding corn and spinning cotton, cotton. It’s so deafening!
Rushing, crushing, rushing, crushing, water flashing through the lake, then the water race, racing, racing…
Boomy, gloomy, boomy, gloomy. Children slaving in the shadows, shadows, noisy darkness.
Threat and danger, threat and danger, as they scavenge in the dust and fragments, dust and fragments.
Finger ripper, finger ripper, no-one hears the screams above the clamour, screaming clamour.

Feb 10 water wheel


Steaming, seething, steaming, seething, cannot pause for a breather, machines don’t stop, they’re racing racing…
Mighty mill wheel keep turning,
Gather the strength of the water,
Machines powered by the River Calder
You can find the full blog with complete links here...

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