Invented: Family Music Workshops 12 Jun 2021
Musicians from the wonderful Crash Ensemble lead children aged 6+, along with their grown-ups, in this fun music-making adventure to invent new instruments and sounds together.
Join in and discover how you can create your own music from scratch and become an instant family band at home! During the live online workshop, you’ll get to invent new crazy instruments using whatever you can find at home - everything from a clothes peg to a salt shaker could make an interesting sound and be the instrument you invent.
Then, you’ll experiment and come up with ways to make lots of curious music, create new music compositions and draw unique visual scores. Crash Ensemble will help you to imagine, interpret and shape your ideas throughout your creative adventure while encouraging playful curiosity, communication, and storytelling through music.
If you’d like to warm up your musical imagination in advance, have a go at our activity sheet from our recent BIG BANG festival of adventurous music here:
Requirements for Participation
For safety reasons, a parent or grown-up should be present in the room throughout the event, and if necessary be available to assist their child. We encourage grown-ups to actively participate in this workshop alongside the children.
- Computer/Tablet/Phone with internet access for Zoom – placed on a table at children’s eye level.
- Paper and a pen or pencil (or colourful markers or crayons if you have them.)
- 2 or 3 objects from around the house that you think could make an interesting sound.
Online platform: The workshop will be delivered using the Zoom video call software.This will be a private Zoom session which will only be accessed by those booked into the workshop, the artist and The Ark's staff. The session will be recorded for the safety and security of all participants, however this recording will not be shared publicly and will be deleted within 30 days.
About Crash Ensemble
Crash Ensemble is Ireland’s leading new music ensemble; a group of world-class musicians who play the most adventurous, ground-breaking music of today. Crash Ensemble are adventurous, innovative and ambitious.
Founded in 1997 by composer Donnacha Dennehy, some of the most distinctive living composers have written for the group, including Terry Riley, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Louis Andriessen, Arnold Dreyblatt, Kevin Volans, Glen Branca, Nico Muhly and Gerald Barry.
Many well-known artists from diverse musical backgrounds have performed with the ensemble; Gavin Friday, Dawn Upshaw, Julie Feeney, Lisa Hannigan, Íarla Ó Lionáird (The Gloaming), Bryce Dessner (The National), Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), Sam Amidon and Beth Orton. Crash have recordings on NMC, Cantaloupe, Nonesuch and Bedroom Community labels.
As well as performing throughout Ireland, Crash regularly perform internationally, with appearances in the last few years at the Edinburgh International Festival, The Royal Opera House (London), The Barbican (London), Carnegie Hall (NYC) The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington DC), Virginia Tech (Virginia), GAIDA Festival (Lithuania) and residencies at The Huddersfield Contemporary Music festival (UK) and Princeton University (NJ).
