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Music to Unite Us

Schools of the World Unite Project

A ground-breaking project is being spearheaded by Richard Phillips, Lead Teacher for Music Performance in the Academy.

When you play a musical instrument have you thought to yourself how much more fun it is to play when you perform with other musicians. Have you thought how special the occasion is when you perform with musicians from other schools? And what about if you were to perform with musicians from other countries and cultures; how special would that be?

With the advancement of technology, today this is possible. This project, Schools of the World Unite is designed to make it possible for musicians here in Peterborough to perform with musicians in say, Peterborough in Canada, and for that group to join with musicians from the USA, Tokyo, Croatia, Brisbane, Moscow, Buenos Aires and Johannesburg or any musician from any country in the world.

Included here are several 'parts' and the whole score arrangement of a song that was once a spiritual but is now known as ‘The battle hymn of the republic’. It has been arranged for wind-band, orchestra or choir. If you don’t have any of these groups at your school you can perform an individual part on your own.

How to take part...

Simply click on the links opposite to download the required music files to printout. The musical arrangement is free and you can copy and use without charge.
Once you have the music printed out, all instrumentalists and singers must perform the piece or part of the piece at concert pitch and at 84 beats per minute.
To help you do this use a keyboard as a tuner to tune the instruments to concert pitch. Next, set the tempo to 84 and then put in a listening device. Play along to the beat of the keyboard.
When you have practised your version, record it either as a sound or video file. We can accept the following formats: Sound .aac, .mp3 .wav .wma Video: .mov .wmv .mp4
When your school or group has recorded their parts as per the instructions, please send them to us at the Academy via this email link.

You don’t have to record the entire piece, a section will be OK, also you can record as many or few parts as you wish, as long as it in concert pitch and played at 84 beats per minute.

The opportunity for contributing to this project will be open until October 23 2009. After that we will then complete the editing process and post a final version of the project on this website for you to play in a concert or special occasion.

I hope you find this idea attractive and would be willing to be part of a truly international group of musicians, and wherever you are in the world.... I look forward to hearing from you.

Richard Phillips