Orchestra ONE Project 37: Dreams & Nightmares

During the May half term break, we returned to Highworth Grammar School for our most recent Orchestra ONE Project. Over four days, our 20 participants created an original piece on the theme of ‘Dreams & Nightmares’, which was performed to friends and family on the final afternoon of the project.

When our young people arrived on Tuesday morning, they had nothing more than a theme in mind. With the support of our brilliant section tutors, and under the musical direction of Jason Rowland once more, our participants experimented with poetic lyrics, soaring melodies, complex time signatures and cross-rhythms to create a truly remarkable composition. The final piece was divided into three movements: Dreams – a floaty, chilled pop-number; REM – rapid, repetitive and chaotic; Nightmare – moving between chuggy metal chords, sky-high operatic vocals and a nightmarish waltz to rival Danny Elfman himself.

A huge congratulations to all our participants – their hard work and dedication to the project was clearly evident through their final performance. Thank you to our superb tutor team for supporting our participants, and to Highworth Grammar School for hosting us once again.

You can listen to ‘Dreams – REM – Nightmare’ below. We hope you enjoy listening to this piece as must as we enjoyed the whole project but, be warned, there are some mega catchy ear-worms that may just haunt your dreams…

Sami Mason

Orchestra ONE Manager