New London Orchestra - Adventures in Music

Music & Maths

Using music as a tool in education as part of the core curriculum

The New London Orchestra developed its first curriculum project in Hammersmith & Fulham in 2000 for National Maths Year, and it has since run the Maths and Music project in many schools across London.

More recently, we have developed variations on the project, including:

Probably Mozart at the Cambridge Festival

The New London Orchestra ran a series of workshops in 8 primary schools in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk exploring the links between music and maths, and discussing how Mozart used maths in his compositions. Pupils from the schools involved then composed their own version of Mozart’s Dice Game, which was performed at the New London Orchestra’s concert at Tattersall’s in November to a very enthusiastic crowd.

Mathstastic!

We delivered a series of workshops at a three-day summer school in Hammersmith & Fulham for gifted and talented pupils. Children aged 8–12 took part in workshops in which they played maths and music games, estimated distance using music and learned about ways of using maths to compose pieces. They also took part in purely maths workshops and music technology workshops, and watched a talk given by Johnny Ball. The summer school ended in an enjoyable performance to parents and guests.

Music & Science

I Smell the Blues!

In collaboration with the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL, the Orchestra has developed a project exploring synaesthesia, designed for Year 8 science students. Synaesthesia is a condition in the brain where senses are linked, e.g. some synaesthetes see shapes or colours when they hear music.

Through a series of workshops led by a combination of musicians and scientists, pupils discover whether they are synaesthetes, learn about the brain and also measure how creative they are.

For more information on this area of our work contact: Mary