Based on our storybook concert Sir Scallywag and the Golden Underpants by Paul Rissmann based on the best-selling children’s book by Giles Andrae and Korky Paul, this pack has material from the composer as well as educators, animateurs and composers Ellen Sargen and John Webb to help you to embed music-making in the classroom.

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SIR SCALLYWAG & THE GOLDEN UNDERPANTS Schools concert

Ensemble 360 & Polly Ives

The Stables, Milton Keynes
Wednesday 8 March 2023, 11.00am / 1.00pm

 £7.50
 (Free teachers ticket with every 10 seats booked)

Past Event
Home› What's on› SIR SCALLYWAG & THE GOLDEN UNDERPANTS Schools concert

For ages 3-7 / Foundation/ Key Stage 1

When King Colin’s golden underpants go missing, it’s Sir Scallywag to the rescue! Brave and bold, courageous and true, he’s the perfect knight for the job… even if he is only six years old!

Original music by Music in the Round’s children’s Composer-in-Residence, Paul Rissmann, features instruments including strings, woodwind, and horn, presented together with story-telling and projected illustrations from the best-selling children’s book by Giles Andreae and Korky Paul.

Performed by the wonderfully dynamic and hugely engaging Ensemble 360 and Polly Ives, this concert is a great introduction

to live music for children. It’s full of wit, invention, songs and actions, and plenty of opportunities to join in.

Free twilight teachers/educators INSET session for participating groups on Tuesday 31 January, 4.30-6pm.
Contact education@stables.org for more information

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

Polly Ives

Polly Ives is one of the UK’s leading music educationalists with a varied portfolio as a concert presenter, narrator, promoter, workshop leader, trainer and cellist.

Polly believes that music should be accessible to everyone from birth and throughout people’s lives. Her career has focused on finding unique and creative ways to provide high-quality musical experiences for young children (particularly 0-8 year olds) and their wide and varied communities.

She regularly produces and presents children’s concerts (including with London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players and Ensemble 360). She has worked with CBeebies, BBC Radio 3 and Scala Radio. Find out more. 

IZZY GIZMO schools concert

Ensemble 360 & Polly Ives

Stoller Hall, Manchester
Friday 3 February 2023, 11.00am / 1.00pm

£2

Past Event
Home› What's on› IZZY GIZMO schools concert

Recommended for Key Stage 1

Approximately 50 minutes with no interval

Music and narration performed by Ensemble 360 and Polly Ives.

Best-selling children’s book Izzy Gizmo (by Pip Jones and illustrated by Sara Ogilvie), tells the enchanting story of an intrepid young inventor who puts her talents to work to rescue a crow that can’t fly.

Izzy’s mechanical marvels and infectious creative spirit are brought to life through storytelling and visuals from the book for a brand-new live performance for children and their families.

With original music by Paul Rissmann the show features 11 instruments including strings, woodwind, horn and piano, and you might even spot the musicians playing pots, pans, whistles and household items! It’s a great introduction to live music for children, full of wit, invention, songs and actions, and plenty of opportunities to join in.

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

Polly Ives

Polly Ives is one of the UK’s leading music educationalists with a varied portfolio as a concert presenter, narrator, promoter, workshop leader, trainer and cellist.

Polly believes that music should be accessible to everyone from birth and throughout people’s lives. Her career has focused on finding unique and creative ways to provide high-quality musical experiences for young children (particularly 0-8 year olds) and their wide and varied communities.

She regularly produces and presents children’s concerts (including with London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players and Ensemble 360). She has worked with CBeebies, BBC Radio 3 and Scala Radio. Find out more. 

Izzy Gizmo

Home› Explore at home› In the round›

Best-selling children’s book, Izzy Gizmo by Pip Jones, illustrated by Sara Ogilvie, tells the enchanting story of an intrepid young inventor who puts her talents to work to rescue a crow that can’t fly. Learn the songs from this concert which brings Izzy’s mechanical marvels and infectious creative spirit to life! Original music by Paul Rissmann features pots, pans, whistles and household items (as well as orchestral instruments). Together with story-telling and visuals from the book, this concert is a great introduction to live music for children. It’s full of wit, invention, songs and actions, and plenty of opportunities to join in.

SIR SCALLYWAG & THE GOLDEN UNDERPANTS Schools concert

Ensemble 360 & Polly Ives

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 30 January 2023, 1.30pm
Sold Out
Home› What's on› SIR SCALLYWAG & THE GOLDEN UNDERPANTS Schools concert

When King Colin’s golden underpants go missing, it’s Sir Scallywag to the rescue! Brave and bold, courageous and true, he’s the perfect knight for the job… even if he is only six years old! 

Original music by our children’s Composer-in-Residence, Paul Rissmann, features instruments including strings, woodwind, and horn, presented together with story-telling and projected illustrations from the best-selling children’s book by Giles Andreae and Korky Paul.  

Performed by the wonderfully dynamic and hugely engaging Ensemble 360 and Polly Ives, this concert is a great introduction to live music for children. It’s full of wit, invention, songs and actions, and plenty of opportunities to join in. 

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

Polly Ives

Polly Ives is one of the UK’s leading music educationalists with a varied portfolio as a concert presenter, narrator, promoter, workshop leader, trainer and cellist.

Polly believes that music should be accessible to everyone from birth and throughout people’s lives. Her career has focused on finding unique and creative ways to provide high-quality musical experiences for young children (particularly 0-8 year olds) and their wide and varied communities.

She regularly produces and presents children’s concerts (including with London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players and Ensemble 360). She has worked with CBeebies, BBC Radio 3 and Scala Radio. Find out more. 

SIR SCALLYWAG & THE GOLDEN UNDERPANTS

Ensemble 360 & Polly Ives

Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
10-11 November 2022, 10.45am / 1.30pm

SOLD OUT

To join the waiting list, please contact ellen@musicintheround.co.uk

Sold Out
Home› What's on› SIR SCALLYWAG & THE GOLDEN UNDERPANTS

CONCERTS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS

CONCERTS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS

When King Colin’s golden underpants go missing, it’s Sir Scallywag to the rescue! Brave and bold, courageous and true, he’s the perfect knight for the job… even if he is only six years old! 

Original music by our children’s Composer-in-Residence, Paul Rissmann, features instruments including strings, woodwind, and horn, presented together with story-telling and projected illustrations from the best-selling children’s book by Giles Andreae and Korky Paul.  

Performed by the wonderfully dynamic and hugely engaging Ensemble 360 and Polly Ives, this concert is a great introduction to live music for children. It’s full of wit, invention, songs and actions, and plenty of opportunities to join in. 

Explore all the resources for teachers online here.

Books for teachers will be provided at the INSET sessions before the concerts. To enquire about pre-ordering a CD of the music, please email ellen@musicintheround.co.uk

 

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

Polly Ives

Polly Ives is one of the UK’s leading music educationalists with a varied portfolio as a concert presenter, narrator, promoter, workshop leader, trainer and cellist.

Polly believes that music should be accessible to everyone from birth and throughout people’s lives. Her career has focused on finding unique and creative ways to provide high-quality musical experiences for young children (particularly 0-8 year olds) and their wide and varied communities.

She regularly produces and presents children’s concerts (including with London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players and Ensemble 360). She has worked with CBeebies, BBC Radio 3 and Scala Radio. Find out more. 

SIR SCALLYWAG & THE GOLDEN UNDERPANTS

Ensemble 360 & Polly Ives

Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
Saturday 12 November 2022, 11.00am / 3.00pm

£12
£7 Disabled / UC and PIP recipients
£5 Under 16s 

Past Event
Home› What's on› SIR SCALLYWAG & THE GOLDEN UNDERPANTS

When King Colin’s golden underpants go missing, it’s Sir Scallywag to the rescue! Brave and bold, courageous and true, he’s the perfect knight for the job… even if he is only six years old! 

Original music by our children’s Composer-in-Residence, Paul Rissmann, features instruments including strings, woodwind, and horn, presented together with story-telling and projected illustrations from the best-selling children’s book by Giles Andreae and Korky Paul.  

Performed by the wonderfully dynamic and hugely engaging Ensemble 360 and Polly Ives, this concert is a great introduction to live music for children. It’s full of wit, invention, songs and actions, and plenty of opportunities to join in. 

For 3 – 7 year-olds and their families 

Books and CDs will be available to purchase in the Crucible Theatre foyer after the concerts. To enquire about purchasing these in advance, please email ellen@musicintheround.co.uk

 

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

Polly Ives

Polly Ives is one of the UK’s leading music educationalists with a varied portfolio as a concert presenter, narrator, promoter, workshop leader, trainer and cellist.

Polly believes that music should be accessible to everyone from birth and throughout people’s lives. Her career has focused on finding unique and creative ways to provide high-quality musical experiences for young children (particularly 0-8 year olds) and their wide and varied communities.

She regularly produces and presents children’s concerts (including with London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players and Ensemble 360). She has worked with CBeebies, BBC Radio 3 and Scala Radio. Find out more. 

SUNRISE

Ensemble 360

Samuel Worth Chapel, Sheffield
Sunday 15 May 2022, 5.15am

Tickets: £20
£14 Disabled & Unemployed
£8 Students & Under 35s
(includes a hot drink and pastry)

Save £s when you book for 5 or more concerts*

Past Event
Home› What's on› SUNRISE

**Information for ticket-holders**

Parking and Access

At weekends there’s free parking on both Montague Street and Cemetery Road. Vehicle access to the Chapel is reserved for audience members with mobility issues.

Access to the Chapel is from Montague Street. Doors will open and Music in the Round stewards will be available to guide audience members to the Chapel from 5.05am. The path to the Chapel, 2 mins walk on a flat good surface, will be well lit, but staff will also be on hand along the pathway.

**

Alphorn transcriptions
CASALS Song of the Birds (4′)
JS BACH Chaconne from Partita No.2 in D minor BWV1004 (15’)
NISHIMURA Fantasia on Song of the Birds (6’)
HAYDN String Quartet Op.76 No.4 ‘Sunrise’ (22’)
DAVIES Yoik (8′)

Distant horn calls herald the rising sun as musicians from Ensemble 360 salute the dawn in this programme of music inspired by the natural world.

As the darkness gradually recedes and the beautiful Samuel Worth Chapel is flooded with light, the musicians complement the arrival of dawn with performances including the tender ‘Song of the Birds’, a Catalan folksong made famous by the great cellist Pablo Casals. Other treats include Bach’s ‘Chaconne’ for solo violin, a musical force of nature, and Haydn’s inventive ‘Sunrise’ Quartet. Sunday morning will never have sounded so good.

Capacity is limited for this event and early booking is advised. Coffee and pastries included.

Sheffield Chamber Music Festival runs 13–21 May 2022

Download the Festival brochure

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CASALS Pablo, Song of the Birds (arr. Catalan traditional song)

The Catalan Christmas carol El cant dels ocells tells of birds singing with joy on hearing the news of the birth of Jesus. Pablo Casals made his cello arrangement after leaving Spain in protest at Franco’s dictatorship in 1939. He played it in almost all his concerts thereafter, including a memorable performance for President John F. Kennedy at the White House in 1961. The song became a musical emblem of Casals’s Catalan homeland, and his self-imposed exile. The great cellist himself made it clear that his reasons for making this arrangement were both musical and political, expressing the hope that ‘these sounds may be like a gentle echo of the nostalgia we feel for Catalonia. These sentiments must make us all work together, with the hope of a peaceful future, when Catalonia will once again be Catalonia.’  

 

Notes by Nigel Simeone, 2022 

BACH Johann Sebastian, Chaconne from Partita No.2 in D minor BWV1004

‘On one stave, for a small instrument, Bach writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.’ This is how Johannes Brahms described Bach’s gigantic Chaconne to his friend Clara Schumann. It is the last movement of Bach’s D minor Partita, composed in about 1720. Probably the greatest single movement ever written for unaccompanied violin, it is an extended set of variations on a short, four-bar idea announced at the start. Bach uses all his ingenuity to create a structure in which unity (the basic theme) and diversity (the astonishingly imaginative variations) are held in perfect balance over a long (256-bar) span. The outer sections are in D minor, while Bach provides tonal variety by modulating to D major for the central section. As Brahms suggested, the result is quite simply one of the marvels of Baroque music.  

Nigel Simeone, 2022 

NISHIMURA Akira, Fantasia on Song of the Birds

The Song of the Birds, played by Pablo Casals (1876-1973) in 1971, was based on a haunting and melancholy folk tune of his native Catalonia. Casals had experienced the horrors of both world wars, and this piece embodied the cello virtuoso’s prayers for peace. When performing it before the United Nations General Assembly toward the end of his life, he stood up and said, “Birds in Catalonia go singing: Peace, peace, peace.” I remember watching a video recording of this scene.

It might be more appropriate to call the piece this time a fantasia based on The Song of the Birds, rather than its arrangement. I wrote it freely, trying to capture the feelings and emotions of Casals, while imagining its performance by Japanese viola player Nobuko Imai. The original piece was written in A minor, but I chose C minor as its principal key to make the most of the viola’s open strings. Casals was one of the most important artists to Mr. Haruhiko Hagimoto; because I have dedicated this short piece to Mr. Hagimoto, and H.H. are his initials, the piece ends with a prolonged H note.

Akira Nishimura 

HAYDN Joseph, String Quartet Op.76 No.4 ‘Sunrise’

Allegro con spirito
Adagio
Menuetto. Allegro
Finale. Allegro, ma non troppo

This quartet was nicknamed the ‘Sunrise’ on account of its opening idea, an ascending theme on the first violin, heard over sustained chords. It was completed in 1797, and published as the fourth in what was to be Haydn’s last set of six quartets. A strongly contrasting idea in semiquavers is punctuated by short, rhythmic chords. Throughout the movement, Haydn cuts between these two sharply characterized themes, often returning to the ‘sunrise’ idea in ingenious ways. For instance, quite near the start, the theme is heard on the cello, beneath long chords in the upper strings, and this time it heads in a new direction – descending rather than ascending. The variety of texture in this movement is a constant source of delight – a composer at the height of his powers in a genre which he had not only pioneered but also developed to new expressive heights. The slow movement is reflective and unusually free in terms of structure: here the fantasia-like form seems to emerge as a natural consequence of the musical ideas. The Minuet comes as a charming contrast, until the rather austere Trio section where the violins present a serpentine tune, full of chromatic twists, over a drone in the lower strings. The finale is based on a theme that resembles a folk-song, and it has been suggested Haydn may have discovered this tune during his second visit to London in 1795. For the most part, the mood of this movement is jovial apart from a darker central section where the tune is presented in B flat minor. The work ends back in the major, closing with two unusually full double- and triple-stopped chords.

Nigel Simeone © 2015

DAVIES Tansy, Yoik

Tansy and I have been collaborating on nature and the horn for many years. A horn player herself, Tansy really understands the primal connection the sound of the horn stimulates in the deepest layers of our shared human experience.  This aspect of her oeuvre fascinates me and I feel it strongly when playing “Yoik”. The haunting lyricism interspersed with a special playing technique sounding like the resonance found in an icy wind of distant memory is just wonderful. Tansy wrote the following about the piece:

A Yoik is not merely a description; it attempts to capture its subject in its entirety: it’s like a holographic, multi-dimensional living image, a replica, not just a flat photograph or simple visual memory. It is not about something, it is that something. It does not begin and it does not end.

A Yoik is not a song in the sense that it is about something. The melody is closely connected to the referential object in an indissoluble relationship. Linguistically this is expressed through the fact that one does not yoik about somebody or something, there is a direct connection; one yoiks something or someone.

The structure of a Yoik follows the Sami worldview of “No beginning, no end”. Sami see the world as following the circular patterns of nature. Living in a whited-out world of snow, often without horizon; perceptions of space, depth, time and environment are all closely-knit mysteries, to which the culture – and the Yoik – are intrinsically connected.

The name Christine Chapman is transmuted here – into the melody of my Yoik for Horn – so this is a yoik for and of her. The piece was composed by the river Medway in Kent, England. It is also a Yoik for that river, in the early morning.

Christine Chapman

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players.