Each week more than two hundred string students attend the Music Centre to participate in one of the relevant groups. The majority of these students attend one of the four orchestras or two guitar groups, which rehearse on Tuesday evenings and which are graded according to ability. Each group takes part in at least three public performances a year, details of which are published in the Centre’s Calendar of Events. Most new members of the Music Centre are invited to attend either the Elementary String Group or the Junior Guitar Ensemble.
At the end of each academic year all Music Centre students are invited to attend an audition at the Music Centre. This audition, together with information supplied by their teacher and group conductor, and through conversation with the students, is used to decide whether they are ready for promotion to either a more advanced part within their own group, or to the next group within the relevant structure. Students in the Elementary String Group would move to the Training String Orchestra and those in the Junior Guitar Ensemble would progress to the Senior Guitar Ensemble.
When students are ready to move from the Training String Orchestra they usually move on to the Intermediate Orchestra. This group combines all four instrumental disciplines, strings, woodwind, brass and percussion, giving many students their first experience of playing in a full orchestra.
The most advanced orchestral string students will be offered a place in the Oldham Youth Orchestra. This group has played locally, nationally and internationally. In recent years the orchestra has toured the USA, the Czech Republic and Belgium. The group is regularly selected to take part in the finals of the National Festival of Music for Youth at the South Bank, London and has appeared in the highly prestigious Music for Youth Schools Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. The Youth Chamber Orchestra and the Music Centre String Quartet provide the opportunity for more advanced players to explore the challenging world of chamber music. In recent years, the string quartet has been invited to perform at numerous prestigious events including the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool. The Youth Chamber Orchestra has worked with a number of professional soloists, accompanied performances of Vivaldi’s ‘Gloria’, and in 2006 was invited to participate in the National Festival of Music for Youth in Birmingham.
Over the years, the String Department has established close links with a number of local orchestras and musical bodies. These include the Hallé Orchestra, the Manchester Camerata, the European Guitar and String Teachers Associations and the Royal Northern College of Music. Students from the Music Centre are regularly invited to attend workshops and concerts organised by such groups. In 2000 members of the Youth Orchestra played along side those of the Manchester Camerata in a professional performance at the Bridgewater Hall. In 2001 members of the Intermediate Orchestra took part in a Contemporary Music Festival at the Royal Northern College of Music and members of the Elementary String Group and Training Orchestra regularly attend the Hallé Orchestra’s educational concerts at the Bridgewater Hall. In 2005 the Youth Orchestra was ‘adopted’ by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra involving numerous projects, culminating in the recording with the Youth Choir of a specially commissioned piece by the composer Bill Connor.
As can be seen from the above, the String Department is an extremely active and exciting one. It offers all its students the opportunity to play a wide range of music from a number of different genres, to the highest possible standards, together with other young people who share a common interest.