Planning taking shape...

Time seems to fly by so quickly these days! We're already at the end of the first week of the Easter Holidays - and whilst it's good to have a break from the busy schedule, it's given me time to really start putting together my itinerary for my Churchill Fellowship.

I'm planning to start my travels in California, where I will meet with the Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir (who visited the UK in 2017). I'll also get to visit the Kodaly Centre at the university, and more of this method of teaching in action at some schools. I'll then move on to the Indianapolis Children's Choir (who see an amazing 2500 young people each week!) & Anima Singers (Chicago), before traveling to Canada to visit the Hamilton Children's Choir. All of these organisations provide an outstanding choral education with truly inspirational leadership - something that makes a massive impact on their communities, change lives and shapes them for the future.

I'll then travel to Finland to find out how they embed music within their school system - and how their 100-strong, government-subsidised musical schools create a thirst for creativity. Their approach to eduaction is vastly different from the UK - not only do they start school later and have a shorter school day, they raise the profile of music and fund it to a much greater level. Oh, and their education sytem is world class because of this! I will visit schools, colleges, universities and choirs to see for myself them impact music has.

I can't wait to learn from and be inspired by all of this. In my next blog I want to focus on each of my planned stops a little more, and I'll share by project objectives!