Christopher Norton writes 5 Micro Musicals!

Christopher Norton writes 5 Micro Musicals – February 12^th &13^th, March 20^th-22^nd, March 25th & 26^th 2013, Davies Lane Primary School, Leytonstone, east London and Selwyn School, Highams Park, east London

I’ve worked for many years with an excellent cellist, Robin Thompson-Clarke.

In his own words:

I first met Chris while working as a professional cellist. I was asked to play on John Pantry's album "Simple Sailing for Beginners' (CN: available for download at www.christophernortonpublishing.com) As luck would have it, there were a couple of solo cello parts and Chris was very complimentary about my playing. He offered me the opportunity to work with him over the following years and I played cello on at least 40 albums, including 4 solo albums. During this time I “fixed” musicians for Chris for many albums and as well as working with Chris, I have also acted (and continue to act) as his agent from time to time.

While working together we became friends and have remained so ever since. I gave the first UK performance of his Sonatina for cello and piano and we are due to record it in the near future. As well as continuing to work as a professional cellist, including teaching at the Royal College of Music, I am now also a fully qualified primary school teacher, working in an East London school as part of the senior leadership team and as their Advanced Skills Teacher for Music.

Robin asked me to come to the school he teaches at, Davies Lane Primary School in Leytonstone, and both create and teach 3 musicals effectively “from scratch”. I was given the themes, but was otherwise free to do what I liked, as long as 8 songs could be taught in a day to around 60 children from one year group!

Davies Lane school is a very tall building, a Victorian monolith at the end of a suburban street:

The first musical was based on A Christmas carol and naturally had songs for Scrooge, the three ghosts and Bob Cratchit. I wrote the words as well as the music and was quite amused at the relish with which the students spoke the lines of the first song, I hate Christmas!

To quote Robin again:

The 'Musical from Scratch' workshop with Chris was a fantastic success. He worked alongside the teachers from a whole year group of 65 children, to create a musical based on Charles Dickens's ' A Christmas Carol', which they had been studying. From the very start all the children were engaged, eager to contribute to the lyrics of each song. Children who were normally reticent about singing were completely involved. As the day progressed, Chris developed the ideas, adding instruments, body percussion and even 'whiteboards' to accompany the songs. Solo singing and small groups were also added. Chris's music, original and contemporary, brought a sense of the 'West End' to this East London school; an experience few had or would ever participate in. Would I recommend you invite Chris to your school-a wholehearted YES!

The second musical was based on the legend of Beowulf and was suitably blood-thirsty and dramatic. The students relished the mixture of symphonic rock and heart-felt ballads, as well as the chance to do dramatic speaking over music.

A few weeks later I went back to Davies Lane Primary School and Robin and I worked on the music, adding vocal harmonies and some canonic ideas as well as working with drummers, guitarists and tuned percussion. Meanwhile other teachers had worked on a script which would help tell the story in dramatic form, as well as costumes and set design. At the end of the second day’s work on each musical, we performed 4 songs, with additional dialogue and staging, for an enthusiastic audience of parents, other year groups and teachers.

A third musical, based on the Vikings, was also devised, this time for year 3 students and its subsequent staging will happen as well.

I also went to another school, Selwyn Primary School in Highams Park (also in east London) and wrote and taught musicals based on Queen Nut – an Egyptian theme – and Theseus and the Minotaur. Return visits will also see these worked on further and presented as staged concert performances.

Visits of a similar nature to other schools are already planned in May and June.

If the idea of Christopher Norton coming to your school to either teach or write a Micro Musical is of interest to you, in the UK, get in touch with Robin Thompson-Clarke at robintc@me.com. For North America, contacty Olive Yau at olive@oliveland.com.

Musicals written so far:

A Christmas Carol

Bewoulf

The Vikings

Queen Nut

Theseus and the Minotaur

Christopher Norton

London, UK 29^th March 2013

Christopher Norton in Southern California March 2013

Christopher Norton in Southern California 9^th – 16^th March 2013

I’ve been to MTNA (the Music Teachers National Association) every year since 2007, not to mention the MTNA in Portland in 1987! This year, MTNA, the biggest music teacher convention in the US, took place in Anaheim, CA. Ok, it was held at the Disneyland Hotel! Here’s where I was staying:

and for those of you with an interest in such things, here’s what was on the bed of my hotel room:

So there you have it….

At MTNA, I was manning a booth that represented both American Popular Piano and Boosey & Hawkes books and I played lots of music from both series, as well as from Connections. I had a nice piano and was able to provide hands-on experience to teachers (including APP improvisation Etudes)

Scott McBride Smith and I also did a presentation on APP, which was remarkably well-attended (125 people) considering it was at 8 am! Sales were strong across all products and there was lots of interest in Piano Festivals and other events. I was also very pleased to meet up with Jovanni-Rey De Pedro, who has commissioned my new Jazz Piano Sonata, and we went through it on one of the many grand pianos available.

Australian composer (but New Zealand-born, that’s the important thing!) Elissa Milne and her mother also stopped by and were serenaded (at their request) with Christmas carols from the new(ish) Microjazz Christmas books.

It was a very worthwhile convention, with events hosted by Clavier Companion, who I write occasional articles for, and by Scott McBride Smith and Ingrid Clarfield. I also hung out with David and Olvia Riddell from MYC, Susan Geffen from Clavier Companion, Connie Wible from Seattle, not to mention Dennis Alexander, Peter Mack, Vanessa Curdett-Murtada…. And I was particularly delighted that my US “agents”, Olive and Anthony Yau, were able to come to the convention for a day and meet with me and others to plan an exciting 2014.

After MTNA, I did a number of events in Orange County and Santa Monica for local teachers. The first was at Nancy Woo’s Southwest Conservatory of Music, where I gave a well-received presentation to a group of local teachers on using pop styles. Here are 2 of the teachers after the presentation, looking forward to using the books in their studios:

Nancy Woo’s name is on the ballot for the MTAC (Music Teachers Association of California) state board of directors, so she’s not just a great piano teacher and ace music dealer!

I also did 2 sessions with Nancy’s students. Rhythm Mania was the name of the session and they played and jammed on pieces in 8 different styles. A good time was had by all.

The next day I had been invited to take a masterclass with 9 students of Sue Dibble, a private teacher based in Irvine. Sue's website is  http://ezpiano.org - do check it out. The students were well prepared and really delightful as well. Here’s one of them after the masterclass:

Sue is from Malaysia, but married to an American, so we had a really first-rate meal at an authentic Malaysian restaurant after the masterclass:

My final post-MTNA event was organised by Deborah How in Santa Monica. Deborah has been a leading light in the Carnegie Hall assessment programme and has also started a new initiative, Bravura Innovations (www.BRAVURAinnovations.com) that is hoping to help legitimise more popular and improvisatory strands in formal piano examinations.

This event consisted of a master class for 2 hours, followed by “Rhythm Mania” for 2 hours. The masterclass had students from 2 studios and they were well prepared and played very musically. The parents (and teachers I suspect) were pleasantly surprised to hear how much emphasis I placed on correct hand position and graceful phrasing. I got most of the students to try to play with a track, which they hadn’t done before. Most of them did very well in a more strict-time environment.

Rhythm Mania was a session exploring playing by ear, playing chords in inversion through a chord progression (with a backing track) playing a bass line through a chord progression, creating an idea that is repeated and “drumming” along to a teacher part or track. We used 8 pieces, from APP, Connections, Microjazz, Microstyles, MicroRock and MicroBallads. I had 20 students on digital pianos as well as some teachers and parents on pianos around the outside. A very stimulating session!

There is definitely great interest in Southern California in a Christopher Norton Piano Festival and other related events. My material is listed on the Royal Conservatory Assessment Programme, ABRSM and the Californian Certificate of Merit, so name recognition is becoming less of an issue for teachers. The next step is to persuade more Californian teachers that exploring popular styles and improvisation in this way is not daunting or even entirely unfamiliar. See you in 2014! Do check out http://www.oliveland.com/nortonevent

Christopher Norton

Los Angeles, CA 17^th March 2013

Christopher Norton in Southern California

Christopher Norton at Davies Lane Primary School, Leytonstone (London) 12^th and 13^th February 2013

I’ve worked for many years with a superb cellist, Robin Thompson-Clarke.

In Robin's own words:

I first met Chris while working as a professional cellist, when I was asked to play on John Pantry's album "Simple Sailing for Beginners'”. As luck would have it, there were a couple of solo cello parts and Chris was very complimentary about my playing. He offered me the opportunity to work with him over the following years, playing cello on at least 40 albums, including 4 solo ones of my own. During this time I fixed musicians for Chris for many albums and as well as working with Chris. I have also acted and continue to act as his “agent” from time to time.

While working together we became friends and have remained so ever since. I gave the first UK performance of his Sonatina for cello and piano and Chris and I are going to record it in the near future. As well as continuing to work as a professional cellist, including teaching at the Royal College of Music, I am also a fully qualified primary school teacher, working in an East London, school as part of the senior leadership team and as their Advanced Skills Teacher for Music.

Robin’s recent career as a primary school teacher has created opportunities for me to go into schools he is working in and work with his students, either getting them to compose their own music or perform pieces for me, some composed by me, others pieces I’d found that I thought they would enjoy. But the idea he had for Davies Lane Primary School in Leytonstone was a radically new one – I would come in and work with 2 entire year groups for a day each and write two “instant musicals”, one based on Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, the other based on the Beowulf saga!

I sketched out each musical – words and music – the night before and then revised and added to each of them, each consisting of 8 songs, before teaching them to the groups (each of around 65 children aged between 8 and 10) by ear.  I had a piano, Robin was there with his cello and we also had a visiting teaching assistant who played guitar.

Apart from that, there were 7 hand drums and a bass drum as well as a small marimba and a glockenspiel. I auditioned students on the fly and ended up with a good group of players in each group, who both copied what I showed them and devised their own parts. I conducted the whole thing:

To quote Robin again:

The 'Musical from Scratch' workshop with Chris was a fantastic success. Chris worked alongside the teachers from a whole year group of 65 children, to create musicals based on Charles Dickens's ' A Christmas Carol', and on the saga of Beowulf, both of which the children had been studying. From the very start, all of the children were engaged, even eager to contribute to the lyrics of each song! Children who were normally reticent about singing were completely involved. As the day progressed, Chris developed the ideas, adding instruments, body percussion and even whiteboards played with pens to accompany the songs. Solo singing and small groups were also added. Chris's music, original and contemporary, brought a sense of the 'West End' to this East London school; an experience few had or would ever participate in. Would I recommend you invite Chris to your school - a wholehearted YES!

I will be returning to Davies Lane School shortly (in March 2013) for 2 days further work with the same students. For at least half of each of the 2 days, each year group will be split into 3, with me and Robin  working with the most able musically. We will look at more solo/part singing and more rehearsed instrumental work. Each year group will be concentrating on 3/4 songs to perform on the evening of the 26^th March (4-5pm) We will work primarily on these songs although we will try to add most of the songs if possible. The other two thirds of the year group will be working on the drama, scenery and costumes for the play (concentrating again on the 3/4 chosen songs). The afternoon session will put it all back together, concentrating on the songs for the performance, and recording all of the musical.

And I am going into another 2 schools in March to do more “instant musicals”, initially on Queen Nut (so an Egyptian theme) and Theseus and the minotaur. This is an exciting new development! Scores and backing tracks will in due course be made available from www.christophernorton.com, along with a license to make copies.

Schools in other parts of the country have also expressed interest and I will add the "mini-musicals" idea to the Events package featured at http://www.oliveland.com/nortonevent/

 Christopher Norton, Los Angeles, CA 16th March 2013