Bath Strings Academy - Music Education For All

Aim

We need your help to inspire musicians young and old; we're raising funds to finance exciting musical opportunities for all.

Musical mentoring for 

minors & majors

Who are we?

Bath Strings Academy (BSA) are a not-for-profit Community Interest Company* and we are on a mission to do something wonderful for our growing community of musicians. 

BSA was set up by two professional string players, passionate about chamber music and the provision of high quality and inclusive music education. The aim of BSA is to support and grow the community of string players within Bath and the surrounds, providing affordable musical opportunities to players of all backgrounds, whilst working alongside the current Local Authority provision. With current finances squeezed, BSA aims to complement the current Local Authority offering, filling the gaps that cannot be met due to insufficient budgets, whilst still feeding musicians back into the county system and nationally.

Bath Strings Academy provides specialised music training for string players of all ages, levels and backgrounds. We believe in the power of music to change lives. In our series of workshops and holiday courses, we nurture excellence through our innovative teaching methods, whilst promoting confidence, focus, friendship and a love of music. BSA believes passionately in the potential of every individual.

Our Vision

Bath Strings Academy aspires to:

• Build a supportive and aspirational community of players rooted in the locality, with solid links within the teaching profession and also with local professional players.    
• Unite players of different ages and experience levels in order to provide leadership opportunities, drive ambition and promote sustainability.
• Bring together public and private sectors.
• Break down financial barriers to participation.  
•  Promote music-making of the highest order.
• Raise the profile of music-making within the local area and nationally.
• Safeguard music education for the next generation.

Our Projects

This year we need to raise funding for three ambitious projects:

•  A huge inter-generational BBC Ten Pieces project involving all types of orchestral instrumentalists where we will have young players from the age of six upwards playing alongside members of our local Symphony Orchestra, supported by professional tutors, student mentors and rehearsed for the day by professional conductor, Eugene Monteith. 
•  A project involving the Villiers String Quartet, who will be the professional coaches for our chamber music course on BSA 3 day summer school.  Opportunities for state school children to play chamber music are sadly lacking in our area and this is something that BSA would like to redress by providing inspiring musical experiences from visiting professionals.
• A long-term plan to put our workshops into local schools to encourage, develop and inspire music-making of the highest order, whilst also providing work placement and Leadership & Mentoring opportunities for university students and young professionals.

We need to raise in excess of £6000 to support this work.

What your money will be used for:

• To fund professional, high-calibre and inspirational coaches; specifically the Villiers String Quartet for our summer school, the professional conductor for our Ten Pieces Project and professional staff for our schools workshops.
• To fund bursaries for students who, for whatever reason, would be unable to attend our courses without financial assistance.
• To help subsidise our venue costs so that we can make our course prices affordable to all.

Bursary Fund:

BSA provides free and subsidised places to students who, for whatever reason, would otherwise be unable to attend our courses. 

• £140 will fully fund a bursary place for a student on our Main Strand of Summer Academy**
• £240 will fully fund a bursary place for a student on our Chamber Music Strand of Summer Academy**
• £40 will fully fund a bursary place for a student attending a full day workshop**
• £20 will fully fund a bursary place for a student attending a half day workshop**

**Monies for bursaries will be held in a separate account. If you would like your pledge to specifically support a bursary, we are happy to name the bursary place after you as an individual or as a company. Please contact us with this request.

We hope that what we achieve here in our locality will have a butterfly effect later on down the line in yours; so, if we manage to inspire a young musician here at BSA, in a few years time, they may well become your own local Music Teacher, Artistic Director or celebrity musical hero!

Photo: 'Sowing the Seeds', our first ever Junior String Quartet achieving success at our local Music Festival.

Pledge Benefits

As professional musicians and teachers ourselves, we have extensive experience in playing for concerts and events alongside professional colleagues, as well as passing on our experience in an education setting. Depending on the pledge amount you can receive a variety of rewards: 

• Sponsorship credits with business logo on our website & summer academy programme.
• Violin/viola lessons.
•  A workshop observation day.
• Full day and half day workshop places for string players.
•  Gift merchandise; badges, t-shirts, bags & mugs featuring our 'Mind Body Music' strap line.
•  VIP evening showcase and concert event.
•  Provision of a professional string duo, trio or quartet playing background music for your private event - wedding, anniversary, party or corporate evening.
• A private concert by our professional string trio.
• Chamber music coaching sessions for your ensemble.
• A bespoke workshop day for your local string group.

If you are unable to contribute monetarily right now, we understand! We urge you to help us by sharing our work on social media and by asking people to get the word out and make some noise about our Crowdfunder campaign.

Further information:

Website: www.bathstringsacademy.org

Follow us on Facebook & Twitter @BathStringsAcad

*Bath Strings Academy is registered as a Community Interest Company (CIC) Number 11357423

Gallery

Photo: Bath Strings Academy first ever field trip when we went to see Nicola Benedetti playing the Elgar Violin Concerto with Bath Philharmonia. We arranged for the children to meet with Ms Benedetti and ask her some questions prior to the concert. One of our young cellists described the experience as "the best day of my life!"

Photo: our bodies in action, having fun whilst listening to and warming-up to music

Photo: Bath Strings Academy 'Chamber Music in Numbers' Day

Photo: engaging our minds, music-making builds focused concentration

Photo: Participants of our 'Tasty Bite of Pop Music' workshop, working out their rhythms led by one of our Senior Leader & Mentors (a university undergraduate music student)

Photo: our young teenagers playing a Mozart String Quartet

Photo: Bodies in Balance, a physical warm-up session led by one our Senior Leader & Mentors

Photo: one of our senior cellists focusing hard as she takes part in playing Borodin's String Quartet in D

Photo: one of our six year old participants at her very first string group experience; she left wanting more and has been back to every suitable workshop ever since. And she has even rearranged her 7th Birthday Party so that she doesn't miss out on our next workshop!

This project successfully funded on 17th June 2018