Two of my favourite days each year are the (free) concert days of our Accordion Orchestra at Morley College - that's right, it's an orchestra made up of accordions only. Yesterday the audience didn't want to leave - we actually left them hungry for more! I started classes there 4 years ago and joined the Accordions at Morley club fairly soon after. Our musical director and conductor Ian Watson was very patient with us beginners. Anyone out there wanting to start learning; we need more beginners to secure the survival of the beginners class, it's on Mondays at 12.30- 2pm and Julie North is a great teacher. Adult Education colleges really are the seat of civilised life - they're full of people who choose to learn more. I'm learning Japanese there at the moment too and I've done Photoshop, welding and Portuguese in the past, all fantastic courses. The music department is particularly well developed and varied, many famous composers have worked there; Gustav Holst, Michael Tippett, Vaughn Williams.
Ian just contributed to a very interesting BBC radio 4 programme about the reputation of the accordion called The Big Squeeze, it's well worth a listen and you'll hear classical accordion playing not tinny folksy oom pahs!
brilliant post! Ive done a couple adult education courses and loved them, going to tweet this...
ReplyDeleteI love adult ed too. I use to teach it myself on an evening - and despite the late arrival home, they were always my favourite lessons. People always came to learn - and have fun - and in that order! I still miss it.
ReplyDeleteOnce my M.A. finishes in February - yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy - I'm planning on doing a stained glass course, which is something I've always wanted to do!
Shame I'm so far, the accordion class sounds great..and as you know, I have an accordion sitting here gathering dust!
Al x
Thanks for the tweet offer Hannah! our progressers class is ok but the beginners class suffered from the move from a Saturday to Monday, this was to ensure the wonderful teacher could do it, so it's great if you're freelance and can work around it as music is the best way to start the week. Yes Houdini, I used to reach in Adult Ed too, it's so great to have students who are already motivated. We may have to fight for it's survival as it'll be a lifeline to those who'll be put of Uni because of the ******* cost!
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