This year Pembroke Academy of Music provided high-level music instruction in six different instruments to 43 students, as well as valuable opportunities for the children to perform together whilst learning new skills.
15 students took their grade examinations with 100% success. Singing has returned to PAM, bringing all the children together to learn to sing and work in harmony. The students have also been empowered by the introduction of a Youth Music Board, which provides them with an opportunity to help shape the program.
One of our targets for the past year was to provide more regular performance opportunities for our students to share their hard work. We were lucky to have some students perform to a supportive audience of local community members at Pembroke House’s AGM, as well as performing in their annual winter concert and summer concert.
The PAM summer concert took place on the 26th June and was an opportunity for the students to show off their hard work and perform in their instrumental ensembles. It was also a showcase of our talented PAM composer-in-residence Georgia Duncan and the LiveOutLoud Music project, funded by the Arts Council. Over the past year, students got to experience musicianship classes which involved improvising and writing their own compositions. This culminated in an innovative project called the PAM Music Map, which is a song written by the students and inspired by interviews they conducted with neighbours, friends and family about their favourite places and things in Walworth.
As PAM looks to next year, we hope to organise more unique opportunities for musical development, such as chamber music ensemble time or special world musical instrument workshops. These would be inspired by and in recognition of the numerous rich cultures in our area. We aim to organise special concerts over the next year, focused on student solos to allow for individuals to build their own confidence when performing, or in collaboration with a guest artist or community organisation.
To find out more about PAM, please follow this link to the webpage.