National Music Week - 16th October 2006

[Dave]

Thanks to links provided by Drew in the first All Angels thread at the HWI forum, we know more detail about the group and the reason for all the current publicity. Last week was the launch week for National Music week and All Angels will be an integral part of it, with other acts. Therefore, this deserves a thread of its own and I'll start it with a background article first published on Tuesday last week - the day of the launch concert at which we think All Angels sang 'Songbird' and Hayley was also present.

Music Week

National Music Week acts unveiled
12 September 2006 - 10:50:15

Matt Willis, Lil’ Chris and Soweto Kinch were among the artists unveiled this morning as forming the centrepiece project of National Music Week, designed to encourage children across the country to experience different genres of music.

The campaign is dubbed My Music and is being billed as a “Mercury Prize for kids”. Organisers have selected singles from ten acts ranging across pop, rock, folk, classical, jazz and R&B and will ask 1.3m secondary school children to pick their favourite. Those choices will form the first ever Schools Top 10, which will be announced on October 31.

The aim is that through discussion of the acts in schools, children will be encouraged to appreciate and understand a broader cross section of musical genres. The acts were unveiled on stage this morning in Pimlico School, a comprehensive renowned for its visual and performing arts education.

The project is being organised by the BPI, ERA and the Music Manifesto. BPI chairman Peter Jamieson says, “To date most music education in schools has focused on teaching children to play instruments. National Music Week is about exposing young people to a broad range of music and helping them to improve their listening skills.”

The full list of acts and songs is:

All Angels – Songbird
Betty Curse – Girl With Yellow Hair
Keisha White – Just Don’t Understand
Lil’ Chris – Get Delirious
Matt Willis – Ex-Girlfriend
Mr Skillz & His Crazy Skills – I Know You Like Me
Natasha Marsh – The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Seth Lakeman – Kitty Jay
Soweto Kinch – Old Skoolish
Trinity Stone – Ayo!

Please post further messages about All Angels involvement in National Music Week and "My Music" (the Mercury prize for kids!) in this thread, thanks.

Here is the National Music Week Website (thanks to Drew).

Cheers, Dave

copied from the HWI forum

[Dave]

Here is the latest news about National Music Week.

From Music Week

National Music Week to expand remit
18 September 2006 - 11:50:24

The organisers of National Music Week are hoping to build the school-based event into a wide ranging initiative designed to re-engage the public with the music industry.

Up to 2m secondary school children in England will take part in the first National Music Week, which takes place from October 16-20. Its centrepiece is My Music, a campaign which sees kids asked to listen to 10 varied artists as an educational exercise intended to help them appreciate musical genres.

The pupils will then be asked to select their favourites and this information will be used to create the first Schools Top 10, compiled by Official UK Charts Company and unveiled on October 31.

The campaign, which is organised by the BPI, Era and the government-sponsored Music Manifesto, is intended to have both direct and long-term benefits for the music industry, by educating participants about its work.

While the first National Music Week is limited to secondary schools in England, Era chairman Steve Knott says that the event could eventually play a role similar to that of the now-defunct National Music Day.

“As its name implies, we are ultimately looking to create a national event that will engage the interest and participation of the wider community,” he says. “Schools, however, are a great place to start, particularly if we can encourage greater appreciation of music across all genres among the key teen audience.

“We’ve had a great response to the campaign so far, and our aim now is to deliver a really successful event next month.”

BPI director of communications and development Steve Redmond, who sits on the National Music Week steering committee, explains that external sponsorship could prove vital to helping the initiative to expand in the future. “Since the news of the event came out we have been approached by sponsors and it is only timing that has prevented it from happening,” he says. “In the future that will form part of it.”

Students at participating schools will receive vouchers that can be redeemed in shops for CDs featuring new and emerging pop acts, such as Matt Willis and Mr Skillz & His Crazy Girls, to classical music from Natasha Marsh, folk from Seth Lakeman, jazz from Soweto Kinch and R&B from Keisha White. The other artists featured are Lil’ Chris, Trinity Stone, Betty Curse and All Angels.

London-based manufacturer Clear Sound And Vision has produced 50,000 copies of each single and Universal is handling the distribution.

Dave

[drew]

Now that National Music Week has started the website has opened up a promised link. For anyone who did not collect their free copy of the single at HMV this morning you can download it here.

www.7digital.com/stores/default.aspx?shop=433

You must supply your school details.

[Dave]

Well National Music week came and went, without too much publicity in the National media I have to say... although there certainly was some on launch day. The schools top ten has today been published, as compiled by the UK Official Charts Company and based on free vouchers redeemed for the singles, by the participating school children. Here is the result... as published today by Music Week (you can only read the headline unless you subscribe)

Lil' Chris tops schools chart
02 November 2006 - 10:20:24

RCA act Lil’ Chris has topped the inaugural schools chart with Get Delerious.

He was followed by Betty Curse with The Girl With The Yellow Hair at two, Mr Skillz & His Crazy Girls with I Know You Like Me at three, Trinity Stone with Ayo at four and Matt Willis with Ex-Girlfriend at five. The next five acts – All Angels, Keisha White, Natasha Marsh, Seth Lakeman and Soweto Kinch - are listed in the chart in alphabetical order.

The chart was part of the National Music Week Initiative from the BPI, Era and the Government-sponsored Music Manifesto.

Under the banner of My Music, all participating school children received a voucher, which they could redeem in record shops for one of ten singles. These were then compiled into the first ever schools chart by the Official Chart Company.

Lil’ Chris received a gold record today from organisers in recognition of his success at HMV’s flagship London store.

Well I guess not all of the All Angels news can be good news - only most of it! I think everyone knew that schoolchildren were not going to buy music by classical or crossover singers in preference to pop or rock; it wasn't rocket science to work that out! Here is the result as a chart - I've added the music genres for each song as given by the official site:

Top 5

1 Lil Chris (Indie-pop-punk)
2 Betty Curse (Goth Pop)
3. Mr Skillz (Afro-Pean Pop)
4. Trinity Stone (Urban Soul)
5. Matt Willis (Pop/Rock)

6 to 10 (alphabetically)

All Angels (Classical Crossover)
Kaisha White (Urban Soul R&B)
Natasha Marsh (Classical Crossover)
Seth Lakeman (Folk)
Soweto Kinch (Jazz/Hiphop)

No surprises there, then. Sadly.

Now, if they had a Senior Citizen's top 10, things would look very different! ;D

Dave

[admin]

Thanks for that information, Dave. As you say, the result is a little disappointing but fairly predictable. No to worry, All Angels will find there own fanbase and I am sure their popularity will grow enormously once the CD is released.

Roger

[drew]

Please remember that these sales were based on the exchange of free vouchers. Perhaps when the youth of today come around to spending real money they will be more discerning.

If the expected audience is the grey party then perhaps the kids will all be buying Angels for grandma and grandpa.

Very surprised about Matt Willis, we don't seem to have heard of him at all since HMV.

[richnorri]

Hello everybody!

I've just found a gallery of photographs from the National Music Week launch at Pimlico School on 12th September 2006:-

new2.isifa.com/reportage_ed.php?repid=16604

Click on each image to read the caption. It appears to be a Czech site, but the photographs are by Getty Images and the captions are in English. There is a second page, but All Angels only appear on the first.

Best Wishes,

Richard