Sonopera®CIC
Music Sound Education Creativity
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Sonopera®CIC creates and produces participatory music projects and innovative stage works which tell stories about people, and the landscapes they live in, through the expressive power of music and sound. All our work is bespoke, and is created in partnership with our clients and project participants.
We devise and facilitate music and sound projects in primary, secondary and SEND schools, as well as providing CPD for teachers at all key stages. To date we have worked with over 14,000 children across Devon, Torbay and Plymouth since becoming a CIC in 2019. Many of our projects work across a number of subject areas including science, literacy, history and geography, and celebrate the power of music to bring school communities together. Here are some ongoing and recent examples of our work in schools:
Interactive Concerts
Our Interactive Concert series continues to be enormously popular - this started as a project called Seven Days of Music in the South Hams funded by Devon Music Education Hub, to help meet the National Plan for Music's requirement for children to experience high-quality live music. Since then we have visited schools across Devon, Torbay and Plymouth playing music to groups of up to 300 children at a time. Every concert is interactive - children can clap, sing, dance and chant as well as listening to music performed on a number of instruments - and tailored to the needs of each individual audience. See our Facebook page, or get in touch for more details!
Devonport Footprints
This groundbreaking project in partnership with Real Immersive, supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, celebrated 200 years since Devonport's foundation. We worked with 4 primary schools in Devonport and Stonehouse to create songs, soundscapes, music and incredible 360˚ film that gave a snapshot of contemporary Devonport today, celebrated its past and looked forwards to its future.
A Sense of Place
In this exciting new project, primary schools in the South Hams were invited to explore and celebrate aspects of their local environment through music and creative work. This is a STEAM project (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) - investigating scientific and technological topics from the National Curriculum’s programmes of study through creative exploration. The project was led by Elfyn Jones, Kip Pratt and Patrick Saturley.
The video shows the children's work at Modbury Primary School in May 2024, where we explored the life cycles of plants and animals.
Landscapes and Seascapes
In this project funded by Ivy Education Trust, Patrick Staturley and Elfyn Jones worked with eight schools in the Trust to create songs celebrating the rich diversity of landscapes and seascapes around the Trust's schools. The primary schools involved were Kenn C of E Primary School, Kenton Primary School, Starcross Primary School, Cockwood Primary School, and Teignmouth Primary School, alongside the Trust's secondary schools, namely Newton Abbot College, Dawlish College, and Teignmouth Community School. The project culminated in a performance on 21st March 2024 at Newton Abbot College, with all eight schools represented. The videos in the Youtube playlist show the artwork created by the primary schools as part of the project, accompanied by live recordings of their performances, and the Soundcloud playlist contains the songs created and performed by the students at the Trust's three secondary schools.
Sonorities
Sonorities is a Music Composition project designed to develop creative music skills in the transition from KS3 to KS4. It began in five South Devon secondary schools in 2019-20, and ran in two East Devon secondary schools in 2020-21 as an online project. In 2021-22 the project resumed face-to-face, working in Mid-Devon, and on its fourth iteration visited four Torbay secondary schools, culminating in a shared performance in Spring 2023. Our fifth iteration visited schools in and around Exeter, culminating in a shared performance at West Exe School, including a massive jam session for 100 students! Incrediby, we are now on our sixth iteration of this extremely popular project, working in four North Devon secondary schools. The video shows a small selection of work created by the students during the Torbay project in 2023.
Rydon Rights Respecting Song Project
Elfyn Jones and Kip Pratt created three songs with Rydon Primary School in Spring 2023 to celebrating the school's status as a UNICEF Rights Respecting School. Click for project webpage and video.
Community and Identity
This project for Ivy Schools Trust in Spring Term 2023, led by Patrick Staturley and Elfyn Jones, aimed to bring the Trust’s school community together, promoting a sense of shared identity, and demonstrate the value of creative arts as a core part of a school’s wider curriculum. During the projects, children created work with music at its heart that affirmed a sense of community and shared identity across the Trust, and responded to the unique character of the wider community around the Trust’s schools. The video shows the artwork that the schools created as part of the project, accompanied by recordings made during the workshops of the children singing the songs composed during the project.
Ashburton Science Project: Light
Elfyn Jones spent two half days with year 3 on their curricular science project in July 2022, investigating the properties of light and shadows. This video is the result! The soundtrack is an original song with lyrics co-written with the children and music by Elfyn Jones. Many thanks to the teachers and staff at Ashburton Primary School, and to Jacobs for funding the workshops.
The Grove Residency
Elfyn Jones was in residence at The Grove Primary School, Totnes, working with children across Key Stage 2, in Autumn/Spring 2021/22. During Autumn Term 2021, Years 5 and 6 were learning about Space. This is some of their artwork, accompanied by a soundtrack of some of the music they created with Elfyn during the residency, which was shared at The Grove with the whole of KS2 as an immersive performance with quadraphonic sound, simulating the orbits of the planets themselves!
Creativity Through Music
This project, in which Ruth Atkinson, Kip Pratt and Elfyn Jones worked with seven schools from United Schools Federation in Devon and Torbay, used music to celebrate and develop creativity in primary schools. It was funded by University of Plymouth and Devon and Torbay Education Hubs. Creativity through Music was featured in Real Ideas Organisation's webinar Making Music Matters in March 2022, and at South West Peninsula Music Education Conference in May 2022, as an example of good practice in music education.
Torbay Music and Poetry Project
This is a Spring 2022 project in five Torbay primary schools: Barton Hill, St Marychurch, Eden Park, Shiphay and Roselands. This podcast showcases the 13 songs that Kip and Elfyn composed with the children in this project.
Let's Play!
A singing games project for primary schools. Informal singing and playing for the classroom, playground and home. Supported by Devon and Torbay Music Education Hub. This project took place in 19 schools across Devon and Torbay in Autumn 2021 and Spring 2022, led by Kip Pratt and Elfyn Jones. Project resources including songs and games available here!
Dartmoor Soundscapes 2020
This project for Dartmoor MAT, led by Elfyn Jones and Duncan Chave and funded by Devon Education Fund, aimed to capture and celebrate the uniqueness of Dartmoor, and raise the awareness of this precious resource for young people, including the ways that it is changing and under threat.
Dart/Change 2018
Dart/Change, funded by DMEH in association with Dartington Arts, told the spellbinding story of the River Dart from its sources on Dartmoor to the open sea through live music, sound design and voiceover narrative and poetry, as told by primary school children from St John's Primary School, Totnes. Students from King Edward VI Community College explored the theme of change in their songs and compositions.
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