Summer 2011
Feedback from our prison projects
We have recently completed a project at HMP Blundeston and have had the most wonderful feedback from the participants including:
"I feel inspired to carry on. Good to see someone in any field with a passion, pure passion. That promotes your music. I'll take my girlfriend to a classical concert when I get out."
"We were the lucky ones, I feel privileged. I appreciate the instruments more live than on the radio. Makes me want to learn an instrument"
"Privileged and honour to work with OCP. I left the music scene as I was disillusioned with it and now I am reinvigorated. You have bridged the divide. I thought classical music was inaccessible, but it isn't."
"A privilege and honour to work with the group. I'd like an opportunity to learn an instrument. Continued teaching would be good."
"Never had an interest in instruments. I now see how great they are. Different genres came together Rasta, Soul, Classical and Rap, all brought together, innit"
"Brilliant time. Been gutted if I'd missed it. Good to see the performance and then do the workshop. Never had the courage to get involved. Felt emotional on Monday. Would pay thousands to do this on the out. I had ideas and carried them out. Learned a lot this week."
"Lots of the top brass attended. That will make a difference."
Our thanks to everyone who made the project possible and to the inmates for participating so fully.
Katharine House Hospice
We had a great time at our concert in the magnificent medieval hall at Broughton Castle in September. The concert, which sold out, was a fundraising event on behalf of the Katharine House Hospice and over £5,000 was raised.
We are delighted to have been able to help the hospice, whose work is important. Thanks to everyone who came along.
Newsletter
Our latest newsletter has been sent out to our supporters and you can read a copy here.
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OCP in the Community
We have just finished a very busy week of work.
We spent two days at Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre where we played music for and with the detainees. The workshops went extremely well, with music proving again a great means of communication between people of many different backgrounds and cultures. We take in percussion instruments which allow the detainees to join in and one of the great joys of these workshops is for us to learn new songs from all around the world. It is a delight to see people who are homeless, in transit and unsure of their futures opening up to music and being drawn out of themselves, even if only for a couple of days.
We spent three days playing concerts at day care centres around Oxford, part of our bigger Day Care Staff Training project. These went extremely well and everyone seemed to have a great time! Our thanks to all the staff and volunteers for making the sessions go so well.
We played a concert at the lovely Bodleian Library at an event hosted by the Oxford University Press on behalf of Michael Swan. Michael is a writer specializing in English Language teaching and reference materials, including Practical English Usage (OUP), How English Works (OUP) and The Good Grammar Book (OUP). He is also, with his wife Catherine Walter, a much valued Patron of the OCP. This was attended by almost 300 people and went extremely well, with the OUP saying that "we helped make a very memorable evening."
To finished off the week, we spent Saturday at the Thaxted Music Festival. We played a family concert in the morning and a general concert in the evening. Both concerts were very well attended and were extremely good fun. Our thanks to everyone at Thaxted for making our visit so successful!
ARne in the USA
Our Artistic Director, ARne Richards, has been to America, firstly to a music therapy conference in Chicago and then on a small lecture tour in California. This went extremely well and they are very eager to have ARne back in October / November and also very keen on the whole group going over to play concerts.