Culture and Climate – for everyone and forever …
I am am very excited to be working with StDin Rita Brunner (Deputy Head, Gymnasium Schrobenhausen) and the festival Barocktage Schrobenhausen on this innovative new Music-Environment project for schools.
After the paralysis of the Corona-lockdown, getting the year off to an exciting new start with a fun, cross-curriculum project like this will help the kids get to know each other and start making connections both in their learning as well as socially.
Its a well-known fact that Vivaldi wrote the Four Seasons in 1725, and that since then it has become arguably the most popular piece of music in the world. What many people don´t know, however, is that he based the music on sonnets which describe - surprisingly accurately - how the seasons were experienced in Venice at that time.
The Four Seasons theme is thus ideal for cross-curriculum activities, discussions and workshops with an emphasis on awareness of our environment, how it has changed and our changing attitudes to it: Painting the scenes to music, making modern versions of the sonnets in English, Learning about the planets, Galileo and how the earth goes round the sun in Maths … The possibilities are endless.
Here are videos of the September 2021 project in Schrobenhausen:
This idea is based on a similar, and very successful project I did in England with Edgegrove Prep School in Hertfordshire. Because at that time we were working together with the wonderful children’s author and Artist James Mayhew, the emphasis there was on painting to music. Here in Germany however, we are shifting the emphasis onto Environment, which seems more topical at the moment, especially since many “Umwelt” schools are struggling (since Corona) with their Environmental goals.