Glamorgan County Cricket Club are thrilled to continue their partnership with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with a new batch of primary schools visiting the Club’s headquarters in Sophia Gardens during the last week of October to kick-start their involvement in an innovative Project combining music and cricket.
During 2022/23 a pilot project took place with 300 pupils and over a dozen staff from six primary schools in the Cardiff area with the children preparing, with the help of the BBC NOW musicians, a short piece of music and a video which was played at one of the Welsh county’s floodlit matches in the Vitality T20 Blast. This week, a total of 280 pupils and 15 staff from St. Peter’s RC Primary School, St. Mary’s the Virgin Primary School, St. Paul’s Primary School, Radnor Primary School and St. Patrick’s Primary School have begun their journey towards creating their own piece of music which will be played at the Sophia Gardens ground.
“It’s already been a fantastic project,” said Andrew Hignell, the Club’s Heritage and Education Co-ordinator, “with last year’s schools creating some wonderful videos and really catchy pieces of music. A measure of the success of the pilot project was that their videos were played at all of the subsequent T20 matches at Sophia Gardens. We received some great feedback from the pupils and teachers who took part, as well as from the spectators who watched and listened to the children’s outstanding work ahead of the T20 matches.”
“The new group of pupils and teachers have been very enthusiastic this week in their first sessions at Sophia Gardens and, having listened to the world-class musicians from BBC NOW, it will, I’m sure, inspire the new batch of schools to produce equally excellent pieces of music as last year’s cohort. Several of the children from the initial project also attended other games at Sophia Gardens during 2023, including The Hundred, and this innovative project, coupled with these short-format matches, are proving to be a great way for the Club to attract and develop a new and young audience of cricket-lovers. All in all, this innovative engagement with local school-children augers extremely well for the future of Glamorgan County Cricket Club.”