In this month's Spotlight we take a look back at The Big Sing event in Aberdeen last May, where 3,000 children from every Primary 4 school across the city came together to sing at Duthie Park, run by Aberdeen City Music Service.
Still from the Big Sing film by Signal.
On 22 May, Aberdeen City Music Service ran the Aberdeen Big Sing 2024. This event involved around 3,000 children from every Primary 4 school across the city. The children had been working with their YMI instructors from August to develop their musical skills and to learn a programme of six songs themed around friendship and joy.
The event took place in Duthie Park, and included performances in Makaton and British Sing Language. The children were accompanied by a small orchestra that was made up of Aberdeen City Music Service staff and pupils.
The finale was accompanied a junior pipe band from Robert Gordon’s College.
This was the second year that we had run the event, therefore the children had heard about it from their peers and there was a great sense of anticipation. The children were excited to be able to see their friends from different schools and to perform in front of a large audience. We found that when we were organising the event that people know what the Aberdeen Big Sing was, and that they were able to buy into our vision for the event.
This year we decided to increase the level of musical challenge for the children singing. We included passages in the songs where children were singing in harmony or canon. We also increased the number of songs learnt in comparison to the 2023 event.
Organising the event gave the Music Service the opportunity to work with other departments across the Council and external partners. This helped strengthen relationships and ensure that correct event planning processes were followed.
The main challenge of the event was to bring a large number of children together in one location safely. This meant closing a road, hand-delivering over 1,500 ‘Good Neighbour’ letters to those who lived in the area and making sure that the site was accessible regardless of weather conditions. It also meant sourcing grass protection boards so that those with access needs could get to the performance area, and also arranging a toilet with a hoist. For this we worked with a company called RevoLOOtion who have a special bathroom on a van which travelled from Somerset to attend the event.
Another challenge was planning the layout of the performance area, as we wanted the audience members to be able to see the performers but also wanted the performance to work musically. We worked with a local sound company to ensure there were speakers and microphones to allow every to be heard and to hear each other. Although this worked well, we will be reviewing the best use of the performance area for the event next year.
Those who participated in the performance have shared that they will remember it ‘forever’. There has been an incredibly positive community response to the event which has given us the momentum to look at making it even bigger next year.