Rosie Wainwright, RPO Violin
Rosie has been a member of the RPO for nine years, and has been an active
member of the Community & Education team for seven of those years,
participating in an incredible range of settings from nurseries to spending five
weeks in a male prison.
Being a classical musician can be quite
an insular activity, we spend hours
practising and rehearsing and then
perform to audiences who sit in
silence. With the education and
outreach projects all of that
changes; we're thrown into groups of
people asking us questions about
anything and everything.
Being involved in projects has enabled
me to see what a tremendous force for
good music can be. I've been really
fortunate to work with groups ranging
from rowdy school children in East
London, to special needs students in
China, to a group of men in prison!
I've met some amazing people through
these projects; there is almost always
something or somebody that I'll be
thinking about afterwards, often long
after the workshops are over.
rapport with the participants; we
composed songs and instrumental
pieces, then rehearsed them until we
had a really good performance.
With such a long project it was great to
be able to observe the effect it had on
people. I worked a lot with the violinist
in the group; at first he was quite tense
and became very frustrated and angry
with himself when it wasn't going how
he wanted it to, but as the weeks went
by he practised for hours in his cell, and
he gained more confidence.
I've found working on RPO resound
projects full of positive experiences. I
think the most important thing we do
is open peoples’ ears to music, at
whatever level they may be at. A lot of
the projects we do involve plenty of
hard work, rehearsing and selfcriticism, as well as the fun stuff, but by
doing the tough bits it benefits the
participants more than just slotting
them
into
something
we've
pre-prepared. Each project is totally
different to the last; a really unique
experience for everyone involved.
I think all the participants found it
tough at one point or another; there
were several times when tempers frayed
and we thought one might leave the
group, but they put in so much energy
and hard work that they were all on a
total high when the performances were
over. As the weeks went by I noticed
My most memorable experience was a how they were all able to focus and deal
collaborative project with Music in much better with frustration.
Prisons. It was a huge project lasting
over five weeks, culminating in a show
I found it really inspiring to watch someone use the violin as a
with all of the music and scripts written
way to focus all his energy, he was determined to stay out of
by the participants. I'd never been
inside a prison before, but over the
trouble, get out of prison and start a new life.
course of the weeks we built up a real
Roger Argente, RPO Bass Trombone
Having joined the RPO in 1992, Roger got stuck straight into the world of
community-based projects, education programmes and creative outreach. He has
since clocked up years of experience across the music education sector, both inside
and outside the Orchestra.
The beauty of working within the
Community & Education dep 'F