North London Food & Culture

Is this Camden’s most truly inspirational event?

Every two years, Camden Music Trust somehow manages to coordinate 2000 of the borough’s schoolchildren to perform at the Royal Albert Hall in a life-affirming event. Were you there on Monday night?

Balloon drop: Camden's young musicians poised to party at the Royal Albert Hall
Balloon drop: Camden’s young musicians poised to party at the Royal Albert Hall

The first thing you notice isn’t the grandeur of the arena, it’s the sound. A noise quite unlike anything else, really. The Royal Albert Hall – a space synonymous with everything from boisterous Prom singsongs to delicate sonatas or rumbling rock music – is positively alive with the uproar of 2000 over-excited young north Londoners. Unlike the usual murmurs and guffaws of adults, the kids resonate at a pitch akin to shingle being pulled back out to sea by a persistent tide.

Up in the gallery, where the noise seems loudest, Kate Frood, headteacher of Eleanor Palmer School agrees. “It’s an amazing sound,” she says, “but there’s also about to be an amazing silence, too.”

And right on cue, there is. All the jumping around, the waving of school name placards and the desperate signalling to binocular-clutching parents subsides into a hush. The importance of this evening, here in this prestigious hall, not lost on a single person of any age.

Camden is unique in the country for this vast jamboree. The Music Trust, council, Arts Council and other key sponsors support all the borough’s kids equally, offering the most comprehensive opportunity to learn music to be found anywhere. The daily work of music tutors, conductors and teachers is then celebrated every two years in some style, as all 22 of our local state schools come together here, collaborating seamlessly on pieces that have often never been performed as a whole before, quite simply because there isn’t a rehearsal space big enough.


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And it’s a beautiful thing. We’re treated to Beethoven, Daft Punk and evocative waves of traditional South African chanting within the first few minutes. Show-stopping soloists prove every bit as compelling as the world premiere of a specially commissioned London Symphony Orchestra love-in, or the whirling, crowd-pleasing feet (and brooms) of Irish dancing to mark St Patrick’s Day.

The night we played the Albert Hall
The night we played the Albert Hall

Deaf children enthusiastically sign along while row-upon-row of choirs reveal much about different teaching styles by how animated or regimented their sections appear when performing. And of course, Camden’s famously diverse mix means there’s a multicultural rainbow of beaming faces for all the photos, like an effortless Benetton advert somehow got made on the last night of the Proms.

It’s all a massive brush-off to the national dialogue of underperformance and delinquency that the UK’s schools and their pupils have to endure hearing daily. It’s also a truly communal event, at a time when we’re told that kind of spirit has been lost to a self-obsessed, X-Factorised, digitally-fixated culture.

And what pours from the balconies and sloshes up from the assembled brass bands, ukulele troupes and jazz ensembles, is pride. A massive, collective, infectious grin, brimming with it. Not just for the enthusiastic work of the kids, but for where we live, what it stands for and does best. Something to remember when bemoaning parking restrictions or other minor annoyances that come with living in this part of the world.

Your host for the evening: C4's Jon Snow in the thick of the action
Your host for the evening: C4’s Jon Snow in the thick of the action

Trust patron David Walliams does his turn as a hugely useful local figurehead, while newscaster hero Jon Snow, who we last saw belting out his rendition of Blur’s Parklife (here’s the video), steers the proceedings expertly, as he’s always done at this event. There’s plenty of high profile support behind the scenes too, but who wouldn’t want to lend time to something so joyous?

As balloons drop to the strains of 2000 voices doing Katrina and the Waves’ Walking on Sunshine, I was suddenly reminded of assemblies spent signing The Beatles and reggae or big band classics at Gospel Oak School in the early ’80s.

It all felt rather progressive, knowing that we’d swerved the dull hymns our parents had to learn in favour of the livelier choruses of “oh island, in de sun”. The rest of the world has caught up, in many respects, with the kind of diversity and less rigid ideas the area excelled at back then. Meanwhile Camden hasn’t needed to shift much. That kind of thinking is now deep in the borough’s DNA.

And once every 2 years – as long as central government’s current savage funding cuts can be replaced from other sources – the whole thing explodes in this noisy, glorious pride-bomb at the Albert Hall.

Funding remains the biggest issue for Camden Music Trust, so you can help by texting JAZZ13 followed by either £2, £5 or £10 to donate that amount, to 70070 or take a look at camdenmusic.org for details of how to give more, and the full range of year round activities.

3 thoughts on “Is this Camden’s most truly inspirational event?”

  1. It’s fantastic but it’s not unique to Camden. Almost same event was run for Hertfordshire schools at the RAH at the weekend, and it sounded equally wonderful for the kids involved. And I heard a Harringey teacher discussing their version yesterday.

  2. It is fantastic, but it is not unique to Camden. The RAH hosted Hertfordshire schools in a similar jamboree at the weekend. And I heard a Harringey teacher discussing their version yesterday. Wonderful, yes, and even more wonderful for not being just a Camden thing.

Leave a Comment

3 thoughts on “Is this Camden’s most truly inspirational event?”

  1. It’s fantastic but it’s not unique to Camden. Almost same event was run for Hertfordshire schools at the RAH at the weekend, and it sounded equally wonderful for the kids involved. And I heard a Harringey teacher discussing their version yesterday.

  2. It is fantastic, but it is not unique to Camden. The RAH hosted Hertfordshire schools in a similar jamboree at the weekend. And I heard a Harringey teacher discussing their version yesterday. Wonderful, yes, and even more wonderful for not being just a Camden thing.

Leave a Comment

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