Vocal & multi-instrumental quartet

Dragonsfire can offer two types of educational performance, and both can be tailored to a specific theme or period of history, or to suit different ages, whether in school, college, university or adult education.

The first is an informal concert/lecture-recital when we play between 25 and 45 instruments, depending on the programme, in a performance lasting approximately fifty minutes, leaving ten minutes for the audience to ask questions. During the performance, we talk about the music and instruments, the history behind them and how the less familiar instruments work. As all the pieces are quite short and there is a great deal of variety in the sights and sounds that are experienced, this has been performed very successfully to even the youngest school children.

It is also possible to link this programme to several different parts of the curriculum, not only music, and can form a focus for work before and after the concert. This programme can portray the Victorian period, for example, and can be used as part of a history 'Victorian Day', and science teachers have used examples of the tiny recorders against the long Swiss Alpine horn to explain the difference in pitch of instruments of different lengths.

This approach is best when a school requires major input in only one hour. It is also cost effective, especially if three or four venues in close proximity all want a concert on the same day, as we can keep the costs down to an absolute minimum. It is particularly helpful if one school will act as a host venue for a second school, so that we can give two concerts for two schools, one after the other in the same venue, as we have so many instruments to move, but this is not essential.

The second performance is a workshop. Again, this can be adapted to suit the particular requirements of any establishment, but can contain singing, instrumental music, period dance and a final performance. This will need more time, but can be for one day with one group of pupils, i.e. for a 'Tudor Day', or we can work with different groups over several days. Either way, we can work towards a performance, either at the end of the workshop, or in the evening to parents and friends. Everybody involved in the workshop can take part in singing and period dance, and we can work with groups of instrumentalists at any level, whether a primary school mixed instrument group, a secondary specialist recorder group or a student early music group.

It is quite possible for us to include music/songs/dance in the workshop that the students may already have been working on, if staff liaise with us in advance.