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23 November 04
SOUND INVENTORS MAKES ITS FIRST VISIT TO SCOTLAND
With leading Scottish composer Alasdair Nicolson as Creative Director, the award-winning young composer initiative Sound Inventors launches its first Scottish project in Inverness, October to December 2004.  www.soundinventors.org.uk 

The results of the award-winning young composer initiative Sound Inventors' first visit to Scotland are to be performed at a showcase on 4 December at The Townhouse, Inverness (7.30pm).

Highly acclaimed Scottish composer Alasdair Nicolson is the initiative's Creative Director and is thrilled that what has become a key music education initiative across the UK has been able to reach his home town of Inverness.

Sound Inventors is open to anyone aged between 12 and 18 years. Over 20 young musicians are taking part in this exciting project, including 16 year old Howard Cox who has made special trips from the Western Isles to take part. Howard, who attends Lionacleat Community School, was also part of the BBC/Guardian Young Composer of the Year competition.

Other schools represented include Grantown Grammar, Golspie High School, Fortrose Academy (alma mater of Alasdair Nicolson), Nairn Academy (7), Alness Academy, Glenurquhart High School, and five from Culloden Academy where the project took place.

Having won the Royal Philharmonic Society's prestigious award for Education in 2003, Sound Inventors celebrates its second phase with several exciting new initiatives for young composers aged between 12 and 18. Building on its previous success Sound Inventors has now introduced projects to Scotland in 2004 which has special significance for its Creative Director and Inverness born composer Alasdair Nicolson. The largest and most broad-based composition initiative of its kind, Sound Inventors enables young people from all backgrounds and abilities to experience the composition writing process, from blank page to recording and performance, aided by Sound Inventors creative teams made up of professional lead composers and musicians. All Sound Inventors projects are free of charge to participants.

Alasdair Nicolson was born in Inverness and brought up on the Isle of Skye and the Black Isle. He studied at Edinburgh University and later became Shaw McFie Lang Fellow. He has written music for many leading musicians, orchestras and ensembles in the UK and abroad. In 1993 his Cradle Song of the Disappeared was chosen to represent Scotland at the International Music Forum in Kiev and he was also awarded the IBM Composer's Prize for his work The Tree of Strings.

The project in Inverness has three parts and started with a week of composition workshops from 18 to 22 October 2004 at Culloden Academy, Inverness. Led by a creative team of established professional composers and musicians including Scottish composer Bill Sweeney, participants were given an introduction to compositional techniques. They also received assistance in getting ideas on paper and the opportunity to have their music and ideas played by a team of professional musicians. Each participant also received a Composition Kit put together by Sound Inventors Creative Director Alasdair Nicolson for use as an invaluable resource and tool both during the Sound Inventors project and afterwards.

The second part of the project comprised composition surgeries that took place on 13 and 14 November 2004. Surgeries are an opportunity to refine and rework previous compositions in time for a showcase performance on 4 December at The Townhouse, Inverness. The performance will be professionally recorded and participants will each receive a CD of their own work.

Sound Inventors Scotland was available at Level 1 for those with little or no experience of composition.

Sound Inventors is a Youth Music Initiative, devised and delivered by the spnm with partnership funds from the PRS Foundation.

More information on Sound Inventors is available at www.soundinventors.org.uk

Comments from previous Sound Inventors participants:
"My pupils have been disabused of the notion that there's no composers round our way" - "A brilliant opportunity" - "It really made me feel like a composer" - "I am proud and so are my family and friends" - "My confidence has grown" - "It has given me inspiration and enthusiasm" - "Sound Inventors was so COOL" - "It's wicked" - I was staggered and also very moved by the quality of the work my students produced and most impressed by the way the team drew their ideas from them and worked with them".

"Sound Inventors is giving young people a chance to be real composers - to be creative, get their ideas down and then to hear real musicians play them while they sit back and listen to the results." Alasdair Nicolson, Sound Inventors Creative Director

"Sound Inventors is an excellent opportunity for young people to work alongside professional composers and musicians and to experience the challenge of writing and hearing their own music for the first time. We hope that Sound Inventors will inspire its participants to get more involved with composition and nurture our future composers." Abigail Pogson, spnm Executive Director

"Further to the success of Sound Inventors 1, the PRS Foundation is pleased to support the next phase of Sound Inventors to give children in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the chance to unleash their creativity and experience the satisfaction of writing their own new music". David Francis, PRS Foundation for new music

SPNM - promoting new music
spnm exists to serve, inspire, educate and bring together composers, performers and audiences. In particular the organisation exists to facilitate and support the development of emerging composers in the UK. It aims to promote the creation and performance of new music across styles and contexts through a range of unique opportunities and services and to increase and broaden the understanding and appreciation of new music in the UK as widely as possible.
More information about spnm, including details of how to become a member, is available from its website: www.spnm.org.uk

Youth Music
Set up in 1999, Youth Music is a charity providing music-making opportunities for children and young people up to the age of 18 who principally live in areas of social and economic need. By the end of 2006 Youth Music aims to have reached more than 3 million children, young people and their wider communities, giving many of them their first ever music-making experiences. More information about Youth Music is available from its website: www.youthmusic.org.uk

Performing Right Society Foundation
The Performing Right Society Foundation (PRSF) aims to increase the public's understanding and appreciation of new music since its launch in 2000. It offers a range of funding schemes designed to support the performance and development of all genres of new music. £1.5 million per annum is distributed to a range of activities from education and community work to experimental new music projects. More information about the PRSF is available from its website: www.prsf.co.uk

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