A Joyful Noise

A seminar event about street music

Fri 7 May. 1.30pm-5.30pm. Free

Westminster Institute of Education, Oxford

We would like to invite you to A Joyful Noise, a national seminar about street bands on Friday 7th May at Westminster Institute of Education, Oxford as part of the UK Street Band Gathering, the first national meeting of UK street music groups in over a decade.

Street music plays an increasing part in arts events programmes, festivals, regeneration projects and carnival and community and celebratory music-making and offers exciting opportunities for Cultural Olympiad-related activity. Across Europe and the US, the last few years have seen an explosion of street bands playing jazz, Balkan folk musics, reworked classics and even challenging contemporary compositions. Forming a street bands is an exciting way to involve participants in creative activity and to work in range of community and education contexts.

A Joyful Noise will examine the role of street music in community celebration, cultural identity and social inclusion with a range of talks during the afternoon by experts in their field including community band leaders Pete Moser (More Music Morecambe, Welfare State), Tim Hill (Tongues of Fire, Albion Horns and Somerset's Outdoor Celebrations Officer) and Mary Genis (CultureMix, Cultural Olympiad Launch Coordinator in the South East and Reading All Steel Percussion Orchestra).

The event will look at street music from a range of different perspectives and aims to present a stimulating mix of information and inspiration, discussion and ideas aimed at

· those working in festivals, outdoor arts, carnival and music

· arts or community development officers looking to create enjoyable, inclusive, self-sustaining arts activity;

· arts organisations looking to take culture out to the streets;

· council or regeneration agencies looking to bring celebratory carnival energy to your town in the run up to the Olympics;

· community music practitioners looking for new ways of working with people of differing ages and musical abilities;

· anyone with an instrument in the cupboard that they have never found the confidence or motivation to play;

· those already involved in street music and looking to find out more about global street band culture and what is happening here in the UK.

There will be explorations of the world of street music across the globe, a history of street music and where it comes from alongside practical case studies of how successful street bands have formed and developed. There will be a special focus on music education and how street bands can deliver core aspects of music learning in formal and non-formal education.

A Joyful Noise is part of a weekend of workshops and performances at the UK Street Band Gathering organised by the Oxford's own community street band The Horns of Plenty together with Simon Chatterton and Oxford Contemporary Music with funding from Arts Council England and Oxford City Council. See www.streetbandgathering.org.uk for more information about the weekend's programme.