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ON DEMAND FOR SCHOOLS - Wires, Strings & Other Things 19 Feb - 22 Mar 2024

Watch Wires, Strings & Other Things presented by The Ark and Music Network from the comfort of your classroom!

Meet Ed, Andreea and James, three totally different people with one thing in common – they are crazy about music and sound.

Ed can usually be found in a corner, building unusual electronic instruments, tinkering with his own world of sound. Andreea plays the viola beautifully and reads complicated sheets of music as if they were fairy tales. And James? Well, James wanders a labyrinth of sound like an explorer, connecting and disrupting with his bass clarinet as he goes.

Anything can happen as they find each other and start to invent music together. What stories will they share when, with your help, they explore the magic and mystery of how to compose, perform and improvise?

Wires, Strings & Other Things, conceived and created by Brian Irvine and Wouter Van Looy, is a music performance that encourages you to always be curious. To listen, respond to, and communicate through the sounds, music and stories that are all around you – wherever you are and whoever you are with.

Filmed in 2022, we are delighted to be offering schools the opportunity to stream the show on-demand into your classroom no matter where you live as part of our Live From The Ark programme, supported by Rethink Ireland.

Take a look at the trailer:


Curricular Links

Perfect for all primary school classes, Wires, Strings and Other Things links in with the Listening and Responding strand units of the Music curriculum. It fosters a sense of excellence in and appreciation of new music. Through storytelling and composing, this show encourages an awareness and sensitivity to the inter-related elements of music and musical understanding. Experiencing this live music performance means children will see and hear outstanding musicians performing brand new music on a range of instruments including the viola, bass clarinet and improvised musical instruments made from a variety of objects.

A free downloadable classroom pack is available in both English and as Gaeilge which provides a range of accessible music activities and creative approaches connected to the theme and songs of the show. The activities will encourage music-making projects in the classroom and support imaginative music responses to the performance which are relevant to the composing and performing music curriculum strands.