The project has greatly evolved since its first delivery in 2014 into its current iteration. Originally, the project was mainly based around repertoire performance with far less interaction, involving demonstrations and some conducted improvisation. There has been a gradual and significant shift to fully improvised sessions, working with individual patients in cubicles and bays, as well as in groups in the RLH Healing Space.
The nature of the sessions now involves working spontaneously, depending on which children the musicians meet. Academy students work with Tony and Mary to engage their participants with a wide variety of musical activities: songwriting, graphic score writing, conducting, musical storytelling, improvising pieces for someone and jamming together using the hospital’s percussion or instrument demonstrations.
'Music has the power to bring down heart rates, slow breathing, relax tension and divert attention from medical procedures... I see a freedom in the musicians’ playing where they do not fear mistakes, focusing on their audience.'
Tony Robb
Improvisation is hugely beneficial to all participants involved in these sessions. The value of bringing young musicians to the hospital environment includes mental and physical respites, a musical exchange between the Academy students and the children, and the various impacts it makes on their skills and life experience.
Over the 10 years of this project, 81 Academy Fellows and students from various departments have worked with hundreds of children at the RLH.
Tony will be stepping away from his role at the end of this year after his longstanding contributions to Open Academy and the RLH. Tony has also held the position of Principal Flute with BBC Radio Orchestra and has been a workshop leader with Wigmore Hall's 'Music for Life' programme for more than 20 years.
Mary graduated from the Academy in 1997 and has since been a violinist in the Royal Ballet Sinfonia. In her work with Open Academy, Mary collaborates with students and Fellows on the Music for Thought, 60 Penfold Street and RLH projects.