December 2018
The last Singing with Friends session of the year is on December 11th when we will have a concert of the autumn repertoire and maybe some Christmas numbers to get you in the mood for the festive season! Please get in touch if you would like to attend. Sadly we will be saying goodbye to the very wonderful Lucy Warren who has been our Projects Manager since 2015, but we look to the future with new office space at the ICA and some exciting new projects.
November 2018
This month Lucy will be attending the Dementia Care Awards at the Brighton Metropole after presenting on the Gilbert project as part of the Dementia Congress. We have a stall at the Self Care event where we will be showing our new film about Opera for Thought, and partners Wigmore Hall and Royal Academy of Music will be showcasing a Music or Thought project for case managers and health and social care assistants to understand more about what they can refer participants to. The guides training at the Victoria & Albert continues, and our last Music for the Moment concert will take place on 9th November at Wigmore Hall.
October 2018
Our Remembering Together reminiscence arts project and apprenticeship is now under way and each session feels like a party! ‘The sessions are so invigorating, I lose myself in the sessions and forget about everything else – we really look forward to Tuesdays’ – participant. We have art sessions at Nubian Life, the Reed centre and London Care with the Wallace Collection based on Victorian theatre sets, and our series of Silver Sunday events includes art and music with the Wallace, Royal Academy of Music and Wigmore Hall, a flight themed session at the Science museum and ends with an architecture themed iPad workshop at RIBA. Meanwhile a new Music for Thought project begins in Kensington & Chelsea at the Reed Centre.
We are excited to be a Dementia Care Award for Outstanding Arts and Creativity for our work with the Victoria & Albert Museum Exploring the Gilbert Collection: a care home project at St Vincent’s care home leading into a training project for Home Instead care givers
September 2018
There are still places available for a two day training session and apprenticeship scheme on Reminiscence Art in Dementia Care. Led by the European Reminiscence Network with Greenwich University, the course and apprenticeship scheme will be of interest to arts practitioners, community arts workers, occupational and arts therapists, group workers, reminiscence practitioners, staff from health and social care services who are interested and/or experienced in positive approaches to dementia care. SEE HERE FOR FULL DETAILS
July 2018
In response to many regular groups and events having a break over the Summer (our own Music for the Moment included – next concert October 12th), we are delighted to be hosting a Summer Soiree on Thursday 23rd August at St Cuthbert’s Centre. The afternoon will include live musical performances, homemade cakes courtesy of Refettorio Felix, party decoration making and of course plenty of opportunities to chat over a cup of tea.
Do share the event widely with your networks and feel free to attend and to support anyone living with a dementia that you are working with. Free to attend but we do need to know numbers for catering purposes so please contact Emma for any more information or to book your place. emma@resonatearts.org or call 020 7321 2702.
We're recruiting for artist volunteers for Creative and Cultural Befrienders, our next training day is Saturday 8th September 2018. For more information and application form to apply.
June 2018
Hot on the heels of Dementia Action Week is Creativity and Wellbeing Week followed by Carers’ Week. We continue our new collaboration with the National Gallery, host Come and Sing with Wigmore Hall for a chance to have a go at fun choral singing, and offer a mini concert at Leighton House and a tour of the newly reopened Emery Walker House. Music for the Moment is at Marylebone Church on 15th June with a welcome return from the historical performance students at the Royal Academy of Music led by Alice Poppleton on baroque violin.
May 2018
As you've undoubtedly heard a lot about recently, the new GDPR laws have come into effect as of today 25th May 2018. We've been working hard to ensure we can keep in contact with all our participants and that everyone will remain to be supported by Resonate Arts. And of course we have updated our policies! You can read the new policy here.
Dementia Action Week runs from 21st – 27th May and Resonate Arts has a jam packed week! We begin a partnership with the National Gallery who will be hosting sessions during Dementia Action Week to kickstart a short project in the gallery. We are also working with the Royal Academy of Music to offer a private tour and concert. See here for full Dementia Action Week listings and don’t miss out!
Opera for Thought - our project in collaboration with Opera Holland Park is in full swing – the group will go see La Traviata at the end of the month in the park. The month will end with a second architecture based Memory Café session with RIBA who showcased the artwork from the previous café in their beautiful building at Portland Place. Having hosted the Deputy Public Health lead John Forde and Cllr Heather Acton last month, Singing with Friends had some more illustrious visitors ranging in director Nicholas Hytner and the Lang Lang Scholars.
Lucy led a session at the latest Share and Learn with The Caring for Care Homes initiative in Hammersmith. This quarter's session was very appropriately at St Vincent's Care Home, and Lucy shared the project we did there last summer, working with artist Zoe Gilmour to explore the Rosalind and Arthur Gilbert Collection with residents at their bedsides and in groups, and making bespoke artworks in response. We are looking forward to publishing our report on the second stage of this project - a creative research and training project with Home Instead Care Agencies - watch this space!
April 2018
April was an exciting month beginning with hosting a Creative Befrienders’ training day on a Saturday at the Bush Theatre. We’re very grateful for the Bush Theatre supporting our session as it was a beautiful space to spend time reflecting and planning with 10 inspiring artists/ practitioners. Over the next couple of months, we’ll be working with Bush Theatre again to deliver a Dementia Friends and Awareness session for their Front of House team.
Lucy attended the Aesop conference on behalf of Resonate Arts which showcased a wealth of initiatives happening nationally to bring together artists and arts organisations with health care professionals. It was great to hear from organisations such as Equal Arts about their fantastic Creative Age project, with a particularly moving testimony from a recent participant, and to learn about other projects happening around the Country such as Manchester Camerata’s projects with people with dementia, and the latest developments in Liverpool Museums' House of Memories project. And it was an absolute treat to be part of a plenary with the inspirational Patsy Rodenburg talking about the importance of presence.
We are gearing up in the office in preparation for our summer projects! Opera for Thought in collaboration with Opera Holland Park begins on 1st May and this year we’ll be working with the Inspire programme and OHP Young Artists to explore La traviata. The sessions finish with a group trip to see the young artists perform.
Lucy has been supporting Opera Holland Park to become a Dementia Friendly venue which has included working with their access and events teams to ensure all their in house literature and signage is accessible for people with dementia, supporting them to increase their reach to people living with dementia locally, and providing bespoke Dementia Awareness training to all their front of house and box office staff.
March 2018
Our Music for the Moment concert at Marylebone Church featured a choir and an organ – both for the first time. The choir moved to sing in the organ loft. In other music news we hosted a lovely concert with the Diophon Duo as part of Music for Thought at William Morris Society in Hammersmith, and Kristina Greally performed at the Memory Café. Singing with Friends, our choir with Wigmore Learning was visited by Cllr Heather Atkin and John Forde, Deputy Director of Public health.
As a team alongside a couple of our brilliant Creative Befriender’s, we visited Alzheimer’s Research UK exhibition Reframe Dementia at the OXO Gallery and were delighted to see and hear Resonate Arts long term collaborator – Susanna Howard’s Talking Life podcasts.
We trained five new Creative Befrienders over two snowy evenings in February and March, looking forward to getting to know these fantastic artists through our Spring/ Summer projects!
February 2018
Singing with Friends, the choir at Wigmore Hall had the immense privilege of singing for HRH Princess Alexandra at Buckingham Palace! The day was the most wonderful experience, singing alongside the London Philharmonic Choir, Croydon Singing for the Brain and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Though Singing with Friends is full, we offered another Come and Sing session for interested people. These are termly so get in touch if you fancy trying it out, though we can’t guarantee you will sing at the palace!
We hosted the Royal Institute of British Architects at the Memory café in Westminster and artwork was displayed at their beautiful HQ in Portland Place. Our monthly arts group in association with Carers Network took love as a theme for February and the group created rather stylish decorated wire hearts.
Our two Music for Thought projects and the Victoria and Albert carers research training project continue, and we had a lovely Music for the Moment concert at Marylebone Church.
At Forrester Court our Living Words poetry project had two really great staff training sessions which were excellently attended and the project continues with one to one bedside work.
January 2018
We kick start the new year with two Music for Thought projects beginning, one at Fulham Good Neighbours and the other at Wigmore Hall. Both projects are working with two fantastic groups of participants who are all are new or fairly new to Resonate Arts. The project is offered in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Music and students from their Open Academy and Fellowship programmes, and Wigmore Hall’s Music for Life musicians.
Living Words began a new project at Forrester Court with bedside one to one poetry. Every participant will receive a book of their work at a celebration event next month.
We have confirmed the next dates of our Creative and Cultural Befriending training sessions. There is the option to attend two evening sessions on 22/02 & 01/03 6-9pm or alternatively, or attend one full day session on 7th April 10.30-17.30. All training sessions will be delivered in a central London location. Click here for more details. January’s catch up session at the Wallace Collection with their education team was really interesting with lots of ideas for taking people living with dementia to art galleries and museums.
Our unique training project with the Victoria and Albert’s Gilbert Collection began, with carers from Home Instead in all of our three boroughs alongside artist Zoe Gilmour, who was the artist on the original project at St Vincent’s Care Home in Hammersmith & Fulham.
The last Singing with Friends session of the year is on December 11th when we will have a concert of the autumn repertoire and maybe some Christmas numbers to get you in the mood for the festive season! Please get in touch if you would like to attend. Sadly we will be saying goodbye to the very wonderful Lucy Warren who has been our Projects Manager since 2015, but we look to the future with new office space at the ICA and some exciting new projects.
November 2018
This month Lucy will be attending the Dementia Care Awards at the Brighton Metropole after presenting on the Gilbert project as part of the Dementia Congress. We have a stall at the Self Care event where we will be showing our new film about Opera for Thought, and partners Wigmore Hall and Royal Academy of Music will be showcasing a Music or Thought project for case managers and health and social care assistants to understand more about what they can refer participants to. The guides training at the Victoria & Albert continues, and our last Music for the Moment concert will take place on 9th November at Wigmore Hall.
October 2018
Our Remembering Together reminiscence arts project and apprenticeship is now under way and each session feels like a party! ‘The sessions are so invigorating, I lose myself in the sessions and forget about everything else – we really look forward to Tuesdays’ – participant. We have art sessions at Nubian Life, the Reed centre and London Care with the Wallace Collection based on Victorian theatre sets, and our series of Silver Sunday events includes art and music with the Wallace, Royal Academy of Music and Wigmore Hall, a flight themed session at the Science museum and ends with an architecture themed iPad workshop at RIBA. Meanwhile a new Music for Thought project begins in Kensington & Chelsea at the Reed Centre.
We are excited to be a Dementia Care Award for Outstanding Arts and Creativity for our work with the Victoria & Albert Museum Exploring the Gilbert Collection: a care home project at St Vincent’s care home leading into a training project for Home Instead care givers
September 2018
There are still places available for a two day training session and apprenticeship scheme on Reminiscence Art in Dementia Care. Led by the European Reminiscence Network with Greenwich University, the course and apprenticeship scheme will be of interest to arts practitioners, community arts workers, occupational and arts therapists, group workers, reminiscence practitioners, staff from health and social care services who are interested and/or experienced in positive approaches to dementia care. SEE HERE FOR FULL DETAILS
July 2018
In response to many regular groups and events having a break over the Summer (our own Music for the Moment included – next concert October 12th), we are delighted to be hosting a Summer Soiree on Thursday 23rd August at St Cuthbert’s Centre. The afternoon will include live musical performances, homemade cakes courtesy of Refettorio Felix, party decoration making and of course plenty of opportunities to chat over a cup of tea.
Do share the event widely with your networks and feel free to attend and to support anyone living with a dementia that you are working with. Free to attend but we do need to know numbers for catering purposes so please contact Emma for any more information or to book your place. emma@resonatearts.org or call 020 7321 2702.
We're recruiting for artist volunteers for Creative and Cultural Befrienders, our next training day is Saturday 8th September 2018. For more information and application form to apply.
June 2018
Hot on the heels of Dementia Action Week is Creativity and Wellbeing Week followed by Carers’ Week. We continue our new collaboration with the National Gallery, host Come and Sing with Wigmore Hall for a chance to have a go at fun choral singing, and offer a mini concert at Leighton House and a tour of the newly reopened Emery Walker House. Music for the Moment is at Marylebone Church on 15th June with a welcome return from the historical performance students at the Royal Academy of Music led by Alice Poppleton on baroque violin.
May 2018
As you've undoubtedly heard a lot about recently, the new GDPR laws have come into effect as of today 25th May 2018. We've been working hard to ensure we can keep in contact with all our participants and that everyone will remain to be supported by Resonate Arts. And of course we have updated our policies! You can read the new policy here.
Dementia Action Week runs from 21st – 27th May and Resonate Arts has a jam packed week! We begin a partnership with the National Gallery who will be hosting sessions during Dementia Action Week to kickstart a short project in the gallery. We are also working with the Royal Academy of Music to offer a private tour and concert. See here for full Dementia Action Week listings and don’t miss out!
Opera for Thought - our project in collaboration with Opera Holland Park is in full swing – the group will go see La Traviata at the end of the month in the park. The month will end with a second architecture based Memory Café session with RIBA who showcased the artwork from the previous café in their beautiful building at Portland Place. Having hosted the Deputy Public Health lead John Forde and Cllr Heather Acton last month, Singing with Friends had some more illustrious visitors ranging in director Nicholas Hytner and the Lang Lang Scholars.
Lucy led a session at the latest Share and Learn with The Caring for Care Homes initiative in Hammersmith. This quarter's session was very appropriately at St Vincent's Care Home, and Lucy shared the project we did there last summer, working with artist Zoe Gilmour to explore the Rosalind and Arthur Gilbert Collection with residents at their bedsides and in groups, and making bespoke artworks in response. We are looking forward to publishing our report on the second stage of this project - a creative research and training project with Home Instead Care Agencies - watch this space!
April 2018
April was an exciting month beginning with hosting a Creative Befrienders’ training day on a Saturday at the Bush Theatre. We’re very grateful for the Bush Theatre supporting our session as it was a beautiful space to spend time reflecting and planning with 10 inspiring artists/ practitioners. Over the next couple of months, we’ll be working with Bush Theatre again to deliver a Dementia Friends and Awareness session for their Front of House team.
Lucy attended the Aesop conference on behalf of Resonate Arts which showcased a wealth of initiatives happening nationally to bring together artists and arts organisations with health care professionals. It was great to hear from organisations such as Equal Arts about their fantastic Creative Age project, with a particularly moving testimony from a recent participant, and to learn about other projects happening around the Country such as Manchester Camerata’s projects with people with dementia, and the latest developments in Liverpool Museums' House of Memories project. And it was an absolute treat to be part of a plenary with the inspirational Patsy Rodenburg talking about the importance of presence.
We are gearing up in the office in preparation for our summer projects! Opera for Thought in collaboration with Opera Holland Park begins on 1st May and this year we’ll be working with the Inspire programme and OHP Young Artists to explore La traviata. The sessions finish with a group trip to see the young artists perform.
Lucy has been supporting Opera Holland Park to become a Dementia Friendly venue which has included working with their access and events teams to ensure all their in house literature and signage is accessible for people with dementia, supporting them to increase their reach to people living with dementia locally, and providing bespoke Dementia Awareness training to all their front of house and box office staff.
March 2018
Our Music for the Moment concert at Marylebone Church featured a choir and an organ – both for the first time. The choir moved to sing in the organ loft. In other music news we hosted a lovely concert with the Diophon Duo as part of Music for Thought at William Morris Society in Hammersmith, and Kristina Greally performed at the Memory Café. Singing with Friends, our choir with Wigmore Learning was visited by Cllr Heather Atkin and John Forde, Deputy Director of Public health.
As a team alongside a couple of our brilliant Creative Befriender’s, we visited Alzheimer’s Research UK exhibition Reframe Dementia at the OXO Gallery and were delighted to see and hear Resonate Arts long term collaborator – Susanna Howard’s Talking Life podcasts.
We trained five new Creative Befrienders over two snowy evenings in February and March, looking forward to getting to know these fantastic artists through our Spring/ Summer projects!
February 2018
Singing with Friends, the choir at Wigmore Hall had the immense privilege of singing for HRH Princess Alexandra at Buckingham Palace! The day was the most wonderful experience, singing alongside the London Philharmonic Choir, Croydon Singing for the Brain and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Though Singing with Friends is full, we offered another Come and Sing session for interested people. These are termly so get in touch if you fancy trying it out, though we can’t guarantee you will sing at the palace!
We hosted the Royal Institute of British Architects at the Memory café in Westminster and artwork was displayed at their beautiful HQ in Portland Place. Our monthly arts group in association with Carers Network took love as a theme for February and the group created rather stylish decorated wire hearts.
Our two Music for Thought projects and the Victoria and Albert carers research training project continue, and we had a lovely Music for the Moment concert at Marylebone Church.
At Forrester Court our Living Words poetry project had two really great staff training sessions which were excellently attended and the project continues with one to one bedside work.
January 2018
We kick start the new year with two Music for Thought projects beginning, one at Fulham Good Neighbours and the other at Wigmore Hall. Both projects are working with two fantastic groups of participants who are all are new or fairly new to Resonate Arts. The project is offered in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Music and students from their Open Academy and Fellowship programmes, and Wigmore Hall’s Music for Life musicians.
Living Words began a new project at Forrester Court with bedside one to one poetry. Every participant will receive a book of their work at a celebration event next month.
We have confirmed the next dates of our Creative and Cultural Befriending training sessions. There is the option to attend two evening sessions on 22/02 & 01/03 6-9pm or alternatively, or attend one full day session on 7th April 10.30-17.30. All training sessions will be delivered in a central London location. Click here for more details. January’s catch up session at the Wallace Collection with their education team was really interesting with lots of ideas for taking people living with dementia to art galleries and museums.
Our unique training project with the Victoria and Albert’s Gilbert Collection began, with carers from Home Instead in all of our three boroughs alongside artist Zoe Gilmour, who was the artist on the original project at St Vincent’s Care Home in Hammersmith & Fulham.