Music for Thought 2021
If you live in Westminster or Kensington and Chelsea, join us for our online music project starting in late January 2021. In partnership with musicians from Wigmore Hall and students from the Royal Academy of Music, we offer interactive and creative music sessions over six weeks for those living with dementia and their carers. Contact us for more information.
December 2020
In December we completed our 6 week Opera for Thought online project, in partnership with Opera Holland Park. We used singing, movement and craft to explore the wonderful and dramatic music of Eugene Onegin. At the end of the month we enjoyed a festive singing celebration, filled with carols, festive hits and of course christmas jumpers!
In November we held an online Introductory Day for new Creative Befrienders, who we are supporting to connect with isolated individuals across Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea. We also partnered with the Wallace Collection and Wigmore Hall to offer a one-off online session exploring music, art and conversation, which was a great success.
We continue with our weekly choir sessions, meeting a range of wonderful guest musicians from the Royal Academy of Music, and we are joined by RAM Fellow Ashleigh who leads our warm up each week.
September 2020
It has been a busy few months for us at Resonate Arts. We said goodbye to our wonderful Director Kathryn Gilfoy in August, after 11 years leading the charity. We enjoyed a fun filled virtual evening with colleagues and professionals to thank Kath for her many years of contribution to the arts and dementia community.
This Autumn we started the new term of our Singing with Friends choir in partnership with Wigmore Hall, continuing to meet online each week. It is wonderful to be joined by guest musicians from the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) and for six weeks we are also joined by the lovely singer Ben, a fellow with the RAM.
In August we were delighted to invite participants to the Masterpiece Gallery over two days, for socially distanced VIP tours of the ‘Wight Spirit 1968-70’ exhibition, led by practitioner Sam Haynes. We took inspiration from the exhibition in producing our September and October monthly activity letter, Resonate Now.
Our Creative Befrienders (CB's) have been continuing to connect over the phone, by post and occasionally (where safe to do so) in person with their befriendees. We have also offered a number of keep in touch phone calls based on the ‘Art of Conversation’ to those who would like to stay in contact during current restrictions, but aren’t connected with a CB or attending a project.
We have been running our Carers Art project in partnership with the Carer’s Network, exploring art and reminiscence by phone, post and on zoom.
If you live in Westminster or Kensington and Chelsea, join us for our online music project starting in late January 2021. In partnership with musicians from Wigmore Hall and students from the Royal Academy of Music, we offer interactive and creative music sessions over six weeks for those living with dementia and their carers. Contact us for more information.
December 2020
In December we completed our 6 week Opera for Thought online project, in partnership with Opera Holland Park. We used singing, movement and craft to explore the wonderful and dramatic music of Eugene Onegin. At the end of the month we enjoyed a festive singing celebration, filled with carols, festive hits and of course christmas jumpers!
In November we held an online Introductory Day for new Creative Befrienders, who we are supporting to connect with isolated individuals across Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea. We also partnered with the Wallace Collection and Wigmore Hall to offer a one-off online session exploring music, art and conversation, which was a great success.
We continue with our weekly choir sessions, meeting a range of wonderful guest musicians from the Royal Academy of Music, and we are joined by RAM Fellow Ashleigh who leads our warm up each week.
September 2020
It has been a busy few months for us at Resonate Arts. We said goodbye to our wonderful Director Kathryn Gilfoy in August, after 11 years leading the charity. We enjoyed a fun filled virtual evening with colleagues and professionals to thank Kath for her many years of contribution to the arts and dementia community.
This Autumn we started the new term of our Singing with Friends choir in partnership with Wigmore Hall, continuing to meet online each week. It is wonderful to be joined by guest musicians from the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) and for six weeks we are also joined by the lovely singer Ben, a fellow with the RAM.
In August we were delighted to invite participants to the Masterpiece Gallery over two days, for socially distanced VIP tours of the ‘Wight Spirit 1968-70’ exhibition, led by practitioner Sam Haynes. We took inspiration from the exhibition in producing our September and October monthly activity letter, Resonate Now.
Our Creative Befrienders (CB's) have been continuing to connect over the phone, by post and occasionally (where safe to do so) in person with their befriendees. We have also offered a number of keep in touch phone calls based on the ‘Art of Conversation’ to those who would like to stay in contact during current restrictions, but aren’t connected with a CB or attending a project.
We have been running our Carers Art project in partnership with the Carer’s Network, exploring art and reminiscence by phone, post and on zoom.
May Blog Post!
This week it is Creativity and Wellbeing Week, 18-24 May 2020 and the festival’s theme is Positive Futures. To celebrate, we wanted to share some of the work that we have been doing since lockdown. The last few weeks have of course been filled with a mixture of emotions including sadness, frustration and boredom. However, whilst acknowledging these ongoing difficult circumstances, we are approaching with positivity the opportunities that lie open to us as we adjust to this ‘new normal’.
We work with people living with dementia, and this community, already vulnerable to becoming very socially isolated are now finding themselves feeling further distanced from friends, family and the outside world. Many in this community have limited access to technology and so for some, a video call is not an option. We cannot currently visit people at home, so we’ve been planning activities and projects that support individuals whilst keeping them safe.
Resonate Arts has always taken pride in its individualised and participant driven response to our community. We have continued to work in this way since lockdown, making phone calls and sending letters and emails to those most at risk of becoming disconnected from our society. We are sharing stories, focusing on the ‘present’ and encouraging creativity wherever we can.
Our wonderful small team of Creative Befrienders have been continuing their relationships, alongside sparking new friendships, and using the power of the arts - singing, writing poetry and sharing jokes to keep spirits lifted. We now have our Resonate Now activity letter which is distributed each month and features different ideas and activities to keep people busy, either on their own or with the support of their carer or relative, and we have enjoyed following up to find out how this has been going and supporting people to try out exercises or sing songs. We've had some lovely feedback, including from Brian who said after doing Julie's exercises, "I'm a couch potato but at least it's stopped me from sprouting!" Like our monthly local events listing that it replaces, it features the work of partner organisations to keep these beacons of community alive in the hearts of our participants.
We have completed our 14 week Cognitive Stimulation Therapy project in partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum and supported by the Gilbert Collection. The weekly workshops, cut short by lockdown, were quickly re-established remotely. Led by artist Zoe Gilmour, participants were able to look forward to receiving a weekly activity pack, with content including resources from V&A curators, and then the follow up phone call. The feedback from the group was overwhelmingly positive and participants were happy to continue weekly explorations of the V&A, even from a distance.
Learning from this and the huge importance of having something to look forward to, we restarted the Music for Thought project with the Royal Academy of Music Fellows who had been involved in the project, who are phoning the participants for conversation and their own private performances. We have offered training sessions with the Fellows and also our Creative Befrienders in working over the telephone. Next, we are hoping to start our Remembering Together reminiscence arts project (which was due to start the week of the lockdown) in the near future.
We have continued connecting with our Singing with Friends choir, usually based at Wigmore Hall, with one to one phone calls and sing-alongs with choir leader Issy. A large portion of the group have internet access so we hope to soon trial a regular group choir online, while still maintaining the one to one calls for those who don't. We have partnered with the Southbank Centre who are piloting a new project ‘Art by Post’ and we are initially supporting 20 individuals to receive monthly packs of poetry and visual art activities and have follow up calls with a Creative Befriender or member of the team. This will be our first new arts partnership under lockdown, whilst continuing to develop our established partnerships, and we are looking forward to having a musician in residence from the Royal Academy of Music in the autumn.
We are still very much part of the local dementia scene, including of course the Covid 19 response, and recently we supported the Dementia Advisor in Westminster in training sessions for link workers who are now encountering people with dementia on the Covid 19 help lines. Our involvement in the bi-borough (Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea) Dementia Action Alliance continues online and through a Whatsapp group and we are very pleased to announce our recent Dementia Friendly Borough status.
We aim to continue connecting with our wonderful community of artists, actors, dancers, poets, musicians and arts and culture enthusiasts as much as is possible. The future remains uncertain, but the arts have always enabled communities to thrive, connect and evolve and Resonate Arts will continue to use the arts as a powerful tool for positive change.
This week it is Creativity and Wellbeing Week, 18-24 May 2020 and the festival’s theme is Positive Futures. To celebrate, we wanted to share some of the work that we have been doing since lockdown. The last few weeks have of course been filled with a mixture of emotions including sadness, frustration and boredom. However, whilst acknowledging these ongoing difficult circumstances, we are approaching with positivity the opportunities that lie open to us as we adjust to this ‘new normal’.
We work with people living with dementia, and this community, already vulnerable to becoming very socially isolated are now finding themselves feeling further distanced from friends, family and the outside world. Many in this community have limited access to technology and so for some, a video call is not an option. We cannot currently visit people at home, so we’ve been planning activities and projects that support individuals whilst keeping them safe.
Resonate Arts has always taken pride in its individualised and participant driven response to our community. We have continued to work in this way since lockdown, making phone calls and sending letters and emails to those most at risk of becoming disconnected from our society. We are sharing stories, focusing on the ‘present’ and encouraging creativity wherever we can.
Our wonderful small team of Creative Befrienders have been continuing their relationships, alongside sparking new friendships, and using the power of the arts - singing, writing poetry and sharing jokes to keep spirits lifted. We now have our Resonate Now activity letter which is distributed each month and features different ideas and activities to keep people busy, either on their own or with the support of their carer or relative, and we have enjoyed following up to find out how this has been going and supporting people to try out exercises or sing songs. We've had some lovely feedback, including from Brian who said after doing Julie's exercises, "I'm a couch potato but at least it's stopped me from sprouting!" Like our monthly local events listing that it replaces, it features the work of partner organisations to keep these beacons of community alive in the hearts of our participants.
We have completed our 14 week Cognitive Stimulation Therapy project in partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum and supported by the Gilbert Collection. The weekly workshops, cut short by lockdown, were quickly re-established remotely. Led by artist Zoe Gilmour, participants were able to look forward to receiving a weekly activity pack, with content including resources from V&A curators, and then the follow up phone call. The feedback from the group was overwhelmingly positive and participants were happy to continue weekly explorations of the V&A, even from a distance.
Learning from this and the huge importance of having something to look forward to, we restarted the Music for Thought project with the Royal Academy of Music Fellows who had been involved in the project, who are phoning the participants for conversation and their own private performances. We have offered training sessions with the Fellows and also our Creative Befrienders in working over the telephone. Next, we are hoping to start our Remembering Together reminiscence arts project (which was due to start the week of the lockdown) in the near future.
We have continued connecting with our Singing with Friends choir, usually based at Wigmore Hall, with one to one phone calls and sing-alongs with choir leader Issy. A large portion of the group have internet access so we hope to soon trial a regular group choir online, while still maintaining the one to one calls for those who don't. We have partnered with the Southbank Centre who are piloting a new project ‘Art by Post’ and we are initially supporting 20 individuals to receive monthly packs of poetry and visual art activities and have follow up calls with a Creative Befriender or member of the team. This will be our first new arts partnership under lockdown, whilst continuing to develop our established partnerships, and we are looking forward to having a musician in residence from the Royal Academy of Music in the autumn.
We are still very much part of the local dementia scene, including of course the Covid 19 response, and recently we supported the Dementia Advisor in Westminster in training sessions for link workers who are now encountering people with dementia on the Covid 19 help lines. Our involvement in the bi-borough (Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea) Dementia Action Alliance continues online and through a Whatsapp group and we are very pleased to announce our recent Dementia Friendly Borough status.
We aim to continue connecting with our wonderful community of artists, actors, dancers, poets, musicians and arts and culture enthusiasts as much as is possible. The future remains uncertain, but the arts have always enabled communities to thrive, connect and evolve and Resonate Arts will continue to use the arts as a powerful tool for positive change.
An update from Resonate Arts
We have temporarily suspended all of our community activities and creative befriending home visits in response to the coronavirus. We know this is disappointing for many of our participants, and it is difficult for us too, as we would like to provide as many creative activities for our community as possible.
However, we are doing our best to continue providing arts activities for you all to do at home and we have been busy behind the scenes planning for the weeks ahead. Please go to our Art at Home section
for more details.
If you would like to support our fundraising activities for this new way of working please donate here
March 2020
Recruitment began for a new Remembering Together reminiscence arts project In partnership with the European Reminiscence Network. A group of apprentices were trained by Pam Schweitzer to accompany the families on their reminiscence journey. This project is on now hold due to the coronavirus.
Just before lockdown however we were able to celebrate the work of the family carers project at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The participants saw the fruits of their labours brought together in an informal exhibition - mini mosaics, embroidery and hand-made books. All the participants had a sketch portrait made of themselves by artist Victoria Semjonova.
February 2020
The monthly art group families made bird boxes and explored the theme of spring. The family carers left the room for a talk with the Carers Network whilst the people living with dementia decorated the boxes and made fat balls to tempt the birds into the garden…
The Singing with Friends choir at Wigmore Hall was gearing up for their concert at the end of term which we sadly had to cancel due to coronavirus. However, an installation of a mini theatre with little wooden audience members who, when touched, sang one of the songs specially created for the group by music technologist Gawain Hewitt was displayed in the foyer during Learning Week. Gawain had worked with several of the community groups based at Wigmore to create a room sized installation the previous year!
January 2020
In January we were sad to say goodbye to our lovely Projects Manager Emma who has been with us since 2017. We are looking forward however to the year ahead with lots of projects starting over the spring.
We started our new memory group with the Victoria and Albert Museum, which will run for 14 weeks until April. This is the second year we have run this project, and we’re delighted to be supported by the Gilbert Collection.
December 2019
We held a social evening for our Creative Befrienders at the RAM, with the opportunity to explore creative games, share learning and experiences.
We started a new project for family carers at the V & A, which will include a session for young carers with artist Sam Haynes to explore their identity as carers. The participants, who are charged with learning new ways of using the museum’s collections in their caring, will have their questions answered over afternoon tea with Admiral nurses and Attachment theory specialist and carer Kate White; get their own bespoke tours of the collections; and create artwork with artists Seiwa Cunningham and Zoe Gilmour as starting points for work at home with their loved ones.
November
We were thrilled to host two successful training days for our Creative and Cultural Befrienders programmes. We were joined by a number of artists across theatre, visual arts and music who are all keen to be matched with individuals living in the community.
We had a great start to our Music for Thought project, offering four workshops exploring the theme of the sky. There were plenty of solos played on the drums, as well as dancing and singing.
October
We had a lovely start to Autumn with our Silver Sunday event at the Wallace Collection in partnership with Wigmore Hall and the Royal Academy of Music (RAM). Participants experienced a tour led by professional artist Sara, and then took park in a music making workshop with musicians and students from the RAM. It was a pleasure to also listen to improvised performances in the gallery, performed in response to the paintings!
We are delighted to have begun our Music for Thought project in the lovely surroundings of Bay 20 community centre in Ladbroke Grove. Participants from across the borough of Kensington and Chelsea are coming together for eight weeks for music making, singing and lyric writing. The project is offered in collaboration with the RAM and students from their Open Academy and Fellowship programmes, and Wigmore Hall’s Music for Life musicians.
September
This month we have been delighted to share ideas about the work with some Japanese research colleagues and also the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It was the first Music for the Moment concert of the season at St Marylebone church. As we move into Autumn we celebrate with three exciting Creative Befriending matches, watch this space for developments! We are recruiting or Creative and Cultural Befrienders, for more information and how to apply.
August
This month we were delighted to host our Summer Soiree at the beautiful St Cuthbert’s Centre. We were thrilled to be joined by two classically trained singers, Sam and Tom who had joined us for our Opera for Thought project. The afternoon was attended by 70 guests who enjoyed delicious home-made cake, entertainment and corsage making.
We have also been very busy meeting with individuals across Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, in addition to hosting two events as part of a consultation process in partnership with the council. These conversations will help inform the bi-borough dementia strategy, of which the final report will be published later this year. Special thank you to RIBA and Westminster Cathedral for hosting our events and the wonderful Terezie Wickenden, Westminster’s Dementia Advisor for all her support as part of the consultations.
July
This month we completed our 12 week Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST) project at the Victoria and Albert museum. Each week the sessions were based around a different theme such as childhood, holidays and money. Participants had the opportunity to meet with a range of guest curators in addition to visiting different areas of the museum such as the National Art Library.
June
June began with a lovely open rehearsal of our Singing with Friends group at Wigmore Hall. It was great to see individuals come together to sing a variety of music and the morning included an opportunity to sing on the Wigmore Hall stage.
We have had a brilliant time over May and June working in partnership with the Young Artists from Opera Holland Park in exploring Un ballo in maschera. Participants enjoyed sessions filled with singing, performance and arts and crafts. The project culminated in attending an evening performance at Holland Park, and it was a privilege to see the Young Artists’ in action, having worked so closely with them during the project.
This month we also held a special event at the Science Museum to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing of Apollo 11. This was part of a training programme for Science Museum staff who wants to develop their offer people living with dementia
May 2019
May has been very busy preparing for Dementia Action Week, taking place 20th – 26th May. The week is filled with lots of activities including a Gamelan Workshop at the Southbank Centre, arts workshops and concerts. An AGM of the Dementia Action Alliance will take place in the new Café level overlooking London at City Hall. The Alliance also supported the forget-me-not scarves trail project which saw statues round the borough sporting bright yellow crocheted scarves decorated with the Alzheimer’s Society forget-me-not, the first joint action with Kensington and Chelsea Dementia Action Alliance
April 2019
This month we are very excited that our Cognitive Skills Therapy project at the Victoria and Albert has begun after months of preparation, with artist Zoe Gilmore working alongside curators to translate the games and activities in the CST programme into an arts-based approach, drawing on items within the museum.
We will be offering training to staff at the Science Museum at the end of the month who are keen to expand their offer for people living with memory loss
March 2019
We are very pleased to announce that we have been joined by Julie Foord as our new Projects Manager. Julie comes from a background in dance education and is an experienced dance artist. She has worked in a variety of community settings and is excited to bring her passion for working in arts and health to the Resonate team. Already this month she has offered warm-ups with Creative Befrienders and at the celebration event 'Remembering Together', and next month she is offering a movement session at the Memory Café, so she’s hit the ground running.
Music for Thought in Hammersmith incorporated a concert at the William Morris Society attended by the participants of several Music for Thought projects past and present, whilst in Westminster the tour of the Royal Academy of Music Museum finished with a performance by the students in the piano Gallery.
We have been training guides at the Victoria and Albert Museum to offer dementia friendly tours and are thrilled that their first tour will take place at the end of this month. Check their website for forthcoming tours which will be on the last Monday of the month during 2019.
February 2019
A great start to the month with our Creative Befriending training at the National Portrait Gallery and lots of new wonderful artists wanting to work one-to-one in people’s own homes. Music for Thought projects began in both Hammersmith and Fulham at St Vincent’s Centre and Westminster at Wigmore Hall with students from the Royal Academy of music and professional musicians from Wigmore Hall. Our first Music for the Moment concert of the year was with the Academy’s Vocal Ensemble at Marylebone Parish Church who were very well received.
The Singing with Friends choir were involved in the Big Sing! event at Wigmore Hall, a year to the day since they were performing at Buckingham Palace! The same week they were part of Home from Home, an exciting installation by sound artist Gawain Hewitt as part of Wigmore Hall’s Learning Festival, where visitors’ movement of individual crockery on a dining table activated interviews and original compositions sung by the choir.
January 2019
Lots of new beginnings! Our monthly art group for people living with dementia and their carers began the year with a session on New Year’s resolutions. We recruited for a new Creative Befriending training day programme and worked on setting up new projects with Royal Parks and three new projects with the Victoria and Albert Museum, along with recruitment for a new Projects Manager for Resonate Arts. The student and artist team preparation and recruitment took place for two new Music for Thought projects. Watch this space!
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.
December 2017
Music for Thought in Kensington & Chelsea ended this month with its very own concert in the beautiful Leighton House. The Memory Cafes on December 6th and 20th will see making Christmas decorations and food. alongside general merriment - see the list for more details. The Singing for Friends choir celebrates the end of term with a mini concert for friends and family on the Wigmore Hall stage on December 12th - get in touch if you would like an invitation. A new poetry project is being planned at Forrester Court with Living Words.
We wish you all the very best for the festive season and look forward to seeing you for more gorgeous concerts and adventurous arts activity in 2018!
November 2017
November will see our fourth arts session in partnership with Carers Network on Thursday 16th 1.45-3.45pm. Following on from our Remembering Together project, people with a dementia and their family carers come along to share in art activities. During the session the carers leave for separate support time: October’s session had input from an Admiral Nurse. You do not have to have taken part in Remembering Together to attend, but please book with Carers Network on events@carers-network.org.uk
We will be speaking about the partnership at the European Reminiscence Network conference and celebration of 20 years of Remembering Yesterday Caring today projects in Greenwich, where we also be offering a practical workshop on what to expect from a typical Remembering Together project: to book email remtheatrearchive@gmail.com
We are also speaking about the Singing with Friends choir at the RSPH conference later in the month.
October 2017
October has been a busy month – we had not one but five Big Draw events in four venues: a special ‘Spinning Plates’ workshop with artist Caroline Dorset at Ark day centre in Westminster, Nubian Life in Hammersmith & Fulham and Quest in Kensington & Chelsea that beautifully illustrated the 2017 theme of Living Lines. We also partnered in a two week collaboration with the Wallace Collection and Rambert dance where participants took to the floor of the Wallace Great Gallery to dance in response to one of the pictures, Poussin's Dance to the Music of Time, hanging on the wall, continued the following week in Rambert’s gorgeous dance studios on the South Bank. The Academy and Wigmore got together again at the Wallace Collection for Silver Sunday – and this time the participants got to interpret the paintings in music!
Singing with Friends, our weekly choir in partnership with Wigmore Hall, became Radio 3 stars in a special weekend extravaganza on Music and Memory which was beamed out from the Wellcome Collection in Euston. Very excitingly, the choir is up for an award in the new Dementia and the Arts category at the Journal of Dementia Care Awards in November.
The weekend was great fun with lots of opportunities to be a studio audience, including for a concert of premieres by four very talented BBC Proms Young Composers, sung by the National Youth Choir Fellowship Octet under the baton of Esther Jones. The pieces were based on poems from Susanna Howard’s Living Words anthology The Things Between Us, which brings together poetry garnered from several residencies in care homes including with Resonate Arts. The programmes will be available for 30 days from 14th October but you can listen here.
The weekend also highlighted podcasts from a range of people living with memory issues including two Resonate participants – you can listen to them here. Extracts were played throughout the night in a special ‘slow radio’ programme.
September 2017
Our former treasurer Bhev Chandrasena is running the Brussels Half Marathon in memory of Malini, his mother with all money raised going to Resonate Arts. What a beautiful act of remembrance and we wish you all the very best on Sunday 1st October! Please help spread the word.
Current volunteering opportunity - deadline 26th October
Resonate Arts is looking for: volunteer artists of any discipline (visual art, music, drama, creative writing etc) who wish to explore their art with people living with dementia:
• in one-to-one creative sessions in people’s own homes
• accompanying people to arts events
• supporting people within Resonate Arts projects
• accompanying people to visit galleries, concerts, shows etc
For more information on the project and how to apply
August 2017
We kicked off our Picturing Palaces project with three artist led tours around Kensington Palace. Each session will be led by Lucy exploring the history of the palace as well as our personal stories around parties. We explored the interesting art of fanology and went on to paint our own fans. In the final week we are working in collaboration with poet Di Sherlock to respond to the building through creative writing.
Also this month, our first monthly workshop in partnership with Carers Network took place at the Beethoven Centre. These multi-arts sessions follow on from our Remembering Together project but are open to all carers of people living with dementia along with the person they care for, and will incorporate a separate time for the carers. NB carers may also attend without the person they care for. Sessions will be on the third Thursday of the month and if you wish to attend you need to book in advance: call 020 8960 3033 or email events@carers-network.org.uk
We are offering a mini Music for The Moment concert at Handel House 2.30 on 21st August with baroque recorder Kristina Greally: book with Kathryn on 020 7312 2702 or by email if you want to go as SPACES ARE LIMITED!!
The next concert at St Marylebone’s Church is on September 29th at 2.30pm
Welcome to our new website as we start using the name Resonate Arts. Many people know us already as Resonate and now we are working across the three boroughs we thought it was better all round if we stopped using Westminster Arts so as not to confuse people!
July 2017
What a sunny start to the month! After coming to the end of three projects in June we are catching our breath back! We have lots of new referrals to match up to our Creative Befriending and Community Arts Programme. We're always looking for more volunteer artists- to find out more click here.
June 2017
Resonate Arts are currently recruiting for our exciting Creative Befrienders programme, deadline Thursday 8th June for training day Saturday 10th June 2017. Find out more about Resonate's Creative Befriending Opportunity!
Remembering Together 2017, Opera for Thought and St Vincents care home project all finish this month and Singing with Friends takes a break for the summer after an inspiring and hugely successful term.
May 2017
After a fantastic first year collaborating with Opera Holland Park, Opera for Thought is back this May! This is a unique opportunity to explore the opera Don Giovanni with Opera Holland Park. Each week singers and musicians from the company will join the group to perform for us, discuss the opera, and of course have plenty of tea and cake together. The project culminates mid-June with a lunch party at Opera Holland Park and attending the matinee performance of Don Giovanni! This year's places are already full but contact Lucy if projects like this would be of interest to you. lucy@westminsterarts.org.uk
Don't forget that Dementia Awareness Week is this month between 14th- 20th May 2017, check out events close to you and how to get involved.
As well as our monthly lists of things to do across the Tri-borough included in our calendar at the top of the page, this month you'll find extra events we are hosting as part of DAW. Here are the lists for Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham.
April 2017
Westminster Arts are thrilled to be working in collaboration with artist Zoe Gilmour, residents and staff at St Vincent's Care Home in Hammersmith and Fulham and the V&A Museum. This four week project will involve a series of multi-disciplinary creative activities and interventions inspired by the V&A's Gilbert Collection, making and creating in group settings and working one-to-one at bedsides. Have a look at Lucy's recent blog on the V & A website which gives much more information about the project and the intriguing Gilbert Collection.
March 2017
Remembering Together has begun with a lovely group of participants from across Westminster all bringing their incredible life stories and experiences to our weekly Monday afternoon workshops. These sessions are ran by Kathryn and Caroline with support from the European Reminiscence Network in collaboration with this year's apprentices.
In other news, we are delighted to welcome our new part time Project Assistant and Administrator Emma to the team. Emma is a Creative Practitioner that works predominately making participatory performance and is really excited to join our small but mighty team! You'll no doubt meet her across the projects at some point.
Febuary 2017
We are recruiting for apprentices for the next Remembering Together project. Dates of project session are Mondays 3.30-5.15pm March 20th to June 19th (your commitment would be 2.30-6.30pm) Training dates 9.30am-5pm Wed 8th and Thursday 9th March with Pam Schweitzer, Director European Reminiscence Network.
Training details available here: 2017- RYCT Training NB - Can be undertaken without going on to complete the apprenticeship.
We are also recruiting for participants for Remembering Together, a 12 week project on Mondays 3.30-5.15pm for people living with a dementia and their family carer together, starting in March. We use a range of arts activities to explore shared memories and stories. Contact Kathryn on 0207312 2702 or kathryn@westminsterarts.org.uk for more information or to make a referral.
January 2017
We are holding our next Creative Befrienders training day on Saturday February 18th, 10am - 5pm at the ICA. If you are interested in working with someone living with dementia in their own home, please see application details here - Creative Befrienders 2017 advert please send your CV and cover letter to Lucy at lucy@westminsterarts.org.uk by 5pm February 16th.
We have temporarily suspended all of our community activities and creative befriending home visits in response to the coronavirus. We know this is disappointing for many of our participants, and it is difficult for us too, as we would like to provide as many creative activities for our community as possible.
However, we are doing our best to continue providing arts activities for you all to do at home and we have been busy behind the scenes planning for the weeks ahead. Please go to our Art at Home section
for more details.
If you would like to support our fundraising activities for this new way of working please donate here
March 2020
Recruitment began for a new Remembering Together reminiscence arts project In partnership with the European Reminiscence Network. A group of apprentices were trained by Pam Schweitzer to accompany the families on their reminiscence journey. This project is on now hold due to the coronavirus.
Just before lockdown however we were able to celebrate the work of the family carers project at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The participants saw the fruits of their labours brought together in an informal exhibition - mini mosaics, embroidery and hand-made books. All the participants had a sketch portrait made of themselves by artist Victoria Semjonova.
February 2020
The monthly art group families made bird boxes and explored the theme of spring. The family carers left the room for a talk with the Carers Network whilst the people living with dementia decorated the boxes and made fat balls to tempt the birds into the garden…
The Singing with Friends choir at Wigmore Hall was gearing up for their concert at the end of term which we sadly had to cancel due to coronavirus. However, an installation of a mini theatre with little wooden audience members who, when touched, sang one of the songs specially created for the group by music technologist Gawain Hewitt was displayed in the foyer during Learning Week. Gawain had worked with several of the community groups based at Wigmore to create a room sized installation the previous year!
January 2020
In January we were sad to say goodbye to our lovely Projects Manager Emma who has been with us since 2017. We are looking forward however to the year ahead with lots of projects starting over the spring.
We started our new memory group with the Victoria and Albert Museum, which will run for 14 weeks until April. This is the second year we have run this project, and we’re delighted to be supported by the Gilbert Collection.
December 2019
We held a social evening for our Creative Befrienders at the RAM, with the opportunity to explore creative games, share learning and experiences.
We started a new project for family carers at the V & A, which will include a session for young carers with artist Sam Haynes to explore their identity as carers. The participants, who are charged with learning new ways of using the museum’s collections in their caring, will have their questions answered over afternoon tea with Admiral nurses and Attachment theory specialist and carer Kate White; get their own bespoke tours of the collections; and create artwork with artists Seiwa Cunningham and Zoe Gilmour as starting points for work at home with their loved ones.
November
We were thrilled to host two successful training days for our Creative and Cultural Befrienders programmes. We were joined by a number of artists across theatre, visual arts and music who are all keen to be matched with individuals living in the community.
We had a great start to our Music for Thought project, offering four workshops exploring the theme of the sky. There were plenty of solos played on the drums, as well as dancing and singing.
October
We had a lovely start to Autumn with our Silver Sunday event at the Wallace Collection in partnership with Wigmore Hall and the Royal Academy of Music (RAM). Participants experienced a tour led by professional artist Sara, and then took park in a music making workshop with musicians and students from the RAM. It was a pleasure to also listen to improvised performances in the gallery, performed in response to the paintings!
We are delighted to have begun our Music for Thought project in the lovely surroundings of Bay 20 community centre in Ladbroke Grove. Participants from across the borough of Kensington and Chelsea are coming together for eight weeks for music making, singing and lyric writing. The project is offered in collaboration with the RAM and students from their Open Academy and Fellowship programmes, and Wigmore Hall’s Music for Life musicians.
September
This month we have been delighted to share ideas about the work with some Japanese research colleagues and also the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It was the first Music for the Moment concert of the season at St Marylebone church. As we move into Autumn we celebrate with three exciting Creative Befriending matches, watch this space for developments! We are recruiting or Creative and Cultural Befrienders, for more information and how to apply.
August
This month we were delighted to host our Summer Soiree at the beautiful St Cuthbert’s Centre. We were thrilled to be joined by two classically trained singers, Sam and Tom who had joined us for our Opera for Thought project. The afternoon was attended by 70 guests who enjoyed delicious home-made cake, entertainment and corsage making.
We have also been very busy meeting with individuals across Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, in addition to hosting two events as part of a consultation process in partnership with the council. These conversations will help inform the bi-borough dementia strategy, of which the final report will be published later this year. Special thank you to RIBA and Westminster Cathedral for hosting our events and the wonderful Terezie Wickenden, Westminster’s Dementia Advisor for all her support as part of the consultations.
July
This month we completed our 12 week Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST) project at the Victoria and Albert museum. Each week the sessions were based around a different theme such as childhood, holidays and money. Participants had the opportunity to meet with a range of guest curators in addition to visiting different areas of the museum such as the National Art Library.
June
June began with a lovely open rehearsal of our Singing with Friends group at Wigmore Hall. It was great to see individuals come together to sing a variety of music and the morning included an opportunity to sing on the Wigmore Hall stage.
We have had a brilliant time over May and June working in partnership with the Young Artists from Opera Holland Park in exploring Un ballo in maschera. Participants enjoyed sessions filled with singing, performance and arts and crafts. The project culminated in attending an evening performance at Holland Park, and it was a privilege to see the Young Artists’ in action, having worked so closely with them during the project.
This month we also held a special event at the Science Museum to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing of Apollo 11. This was part of a training programme for Science Museum staff who wants to develop their offer people living with dementia
May 2019
May has been very busy preparing for Dementia Action Week, taking place 20th – 26th May. The week is filled with lots of activities including a Gamelan Workshop at the Southbank Centre, arts workshops and concerts. An AGM of the Dementia Action Alliance will take place in the new Café level overlooking London at City Hall. The Alliance also supported the forget-me-not scarves trail project which saw statues round the borough sporting bright yellow crocheted scarves decorated with the Alzheimer’s Society forget-me-not, the first joint action with Kensington and Chelsea Dementia Action Alliance
April 2019
This month we are very excited that our Cognitive Skills Therapy project at the Victoria and Albert has begun after months of preparation, with artist Zoe Gilmore working alongside curators to translate the games and activities in the CST programme into an arts-based approach, drawing on items within the museum.
We will be offering training to staff at the Science Museum at the end of the month who are keen to expand their offer for people living with memory loss
March 2019
We are very pleased to announce that we have been joined by Julie Foord as our new Projects Manager. Julie comes from a background in dance education and is an experienced dance artist. She has worked in a variety of community settings and is excited to bring her passion for working in arts and health to the Resonate team. Already this month she has offered warm-ups with Creative Befrienders and at the celebration event 'Remembering Together', and next month she is offering a movement session at the Memory Café, so she’s hit the ground running.
Music for Thought in Hammersmith incorporated a concert at the William Morris Society attended by the participants of several Music for Thought projects past and present, whilst in Westminster the tour of the Royal Academy of Music Museum finished with a performance by the students in the piano Gallery.
We have been training guides at the Victoria and Albert Museum to offer dementia friendly tours and are thrilled that their first tour will take place at the end of this month. Check their website for forthcoming tours which will be on the last Monday of the month during 2019.
February 2019
A great start to the month with our Creative Befriending training at the National Portrait Gallery and lots of new wonderful artists wanting to work one-to-one in people’s own homes. Music for Thought projects began in both Hammersmith and Fulham at St Vincent’s Centre and Westminster at Wigmore Hall with students from the Royal Academy of music and professional musicians from Wigmore Hall. Our first Music for the Moment concert of the year was with the Academy’s Vocal Ensemble at Marylebone Parish Church who were very well received.
The Singing with Friends choir were involved in the Big Sing! event at Wigmore Hall, a year to the day since they were performing at Buckingham Palace! The same week they were part of Home from Home, an exciting installation by sound artist Gawain Hewitt as part of Wigmore Hall’s Learning Festival, where visitors’ movement of individual crockery on a dining table activated interviews and original compositions sung by the choir.
January 2019
Lots of new beginnings! Our monthly art group for people living with dementia and their carers began the year with a session on New Year’s resolutions. We recruited for a new Creative Befriending training day programme and worked on setting up new projects with Royal Parks and three new projects with the Victoria and Albert Museum, along with recruitment for a new Projects Manager for Resonate Arts. The student and artist team preparation and recruitment took place for two new Music for Thought projects. Watch this space!
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.
December 2017
Music for Thought in Kensington & Chelsea ended this month with its very own concert in the beautiful Leighton House. The Memory Cafes on December 6th and 20th will see making Christmas decorations and food. alongside general merriment - see the list for more details. The Singing for Friends choir celebrates the end of term with a mini concert for friends and family on the Wigmore Hall stage on December 12th - get in touch if you would like an invitation. A new poetry project is being planned at Forrester Court with Living Words.
We wish you all the very best for the festive season and look forward to seeing you for more gorgeous concerts and adventurous arts activity in 2018!
November 2017
November will see our fourth arts session in partnership with Carers Network on Thursday 16th 1.45-3.45pm. Following on from our Remembering Together project, people with a dementia and their family carers come along to share in art activities. During the session the carers leave for separate support time: October’s session had input from an Admiral Nurse. You do not have to have taken part in Remembering Together to attend, but please book with Carers Network on events@carers-network.org.uk
We will be speaking about the partnership at the European Reminiscence Network conference and celebration of 20 years of Remembering Yesterday Caring today projects in Greenwich, where we also be offering a practical workshop on what to expect from a typical Remembering Together project: to book email remtheatrearchive@gmail.com
We are also speaking about the Singing with Friends choir at the RSPH conference later in the month.
October 2017
October has been a busy month – we had not one but five Big Draw events in four venues: a special ‘Spinning Plates’ workshop with artist Caroline Dorset at Ark day centre in Westminster, Nubian Life in Hammersmith & Fulham and Quest in Kensington & Chelsea that beautifully illustrated the 2017 theme of Living Lines. We also partnered in a two week collaboration with the Wallace Collection and Rambert dance where participants took to the floor of the Wallace Great Gallery to dance in response to one of the pictures, Poussin's Dance to the Music of Time, hanging on the wall, continued the following week in Rambert’s gorgeous dance studios on the South Bank. The Academy and Wigmore got together again at the Wallace Collection for Silver Sunday – and this time the participants got to interpret the paintings in music!
Singing with Friends, our weekly choir in partnership with Wigmore Hall, became Radio 3 stars in a special weekend extravaganza on Music and Memory which was beamed out from the Wellcome Collection in Euston. Very excitingly, the choir is up for an award in the new Dementia and the Arts category at the Journal of Dementia Care Awards in November.
The weekend was great fun with lots of opportunities to be a studio audience, including for a concert of premieres by four very talented BBC Proms Young Composers, sung by the National Youth Choir Fellowship Octet under the baton of Esther Jones. The pieces were based on poems from Susanna Howard’s Living Words anthology The Things Between Us, which brings together poetry garnered from several residencies in care homes including with Resonate Arts. The programmes will be available for 30 days from 14th October but you can listen here.
The weekend also highlighted podcasts from a range of people living with memory issues including two Resonate participants – you can listen to them here. Extracts were played throughout the night in a special ‘slow radio’ programme.
September 2017
Our former treasurer Bhev Chandrasena is running the Brussels Half Marathon in memory of Malini, his mother with all money raised going to Resonate Arts. What a beautiful act of remembrance and we wish you all the very best on Sunday 1st October! Please help spread the word.
Current volunteering opportunity - deadline 26th October
Resonate Arts is looking for: volunteer artists of any discipline (visual art, music, drama, creative writing etc) who wish to explore their art with people living with dementia:
• in one-to-one creative sessions in people’s own homes
• accompanying people to arts events
• supporting people within Resonate Arts projects
• accompanying people to visit galleries, concerts, shows etc
For more information on the project and how to apply
August 2017
We kicked off our Picturing Palaces project with three artist led tours around Kensington Palace. Each session will be led by Lucy exploring the history of the palace as well as our personal stories around parties. We explored the interesting art of fanology and went on to paint our own fans. In the final week we are working in collaboration with poet Di Sherlock to respond to the building through creative writing.
Also this month, our first monthly workshop in partnership with Carers Network took place at the Beethoven Centre. These multi-arts sessions follow on from our Remembering Together project but are open to all carers of people living with dementia along with the person they care for, and will incorporate a separate time for the carers. NB carers may also attend without the person they care for. Sessions will be on the third Thursday of the month and if you wish to attend you need to book in advance: call 020 8960 3033 or email events@carers-network.org.uk
We are offering a mini Music for The Moment concert at Handel House 2.30 on 21st August with baroque recorder Kristina Greally: book with Kathryn on 020 7312 2702 or by email if you want to go as SPACES ARE LIMITED!!
The next concert at St Marylebone’s Church is on September 29th at 2.30pm
Welcome to our new website as we start using the name Resonate Arts. Many people know us already as Resonate and now we are working across the three boroughs we thought it was better all round if we stopped using Westminster Arts so as not to confuse people!
July 2017
What a sunny start to the month! After coming to the end of three projects in June we are catching our breath back! We have lots of new referrals to match up to our Creative Befriending and Community Arts Programme. We're always looking for more volunteer artists- to find out more click here.
June 2017
Resonate Arts are currently recruiting for our exciting Creative Befrienders programme, deadline Thursday 8th June for training day Saturday 10th June 2017. Find out more about Resonate's Creative Befriending Opportunity!
Remembering Together 2017, Opera for Thought and St Vincents care home project all finish this month and Singing with Friends takes a break for the summer after an inspiring and hugely successful term.
May 2017
After a fantastic first year collaborating with Opera Holland Park, Opera for Thought is back this May! This is a unique opportunity to explore the opera Don Giovanni with Opera Holland Park. Each week singers and musicians from the company will join the group to perform for us, discuss the opera, and of course have plenty of tea and cake together. The project culminates mid-June with a lunch party at Opera Holland Park and attending the matinee performance of Don Giovanni! This year's places are already full but contact Lucy if projects like this would be of interest to you. lucy@westminsterarts.org.uk
Don't forget that Dementia Awareness Week is this month between 14th- 20th May 2017, check out events close to you and how to get involved.
As well as our monthly lists of things to do across the Tri-borough included in our calendar at the top of the page, this month you'll find extra events we are hosting as part of DAW. Here are the lists for Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham.
April 2017
Westminster Arts are thrilled to be working in collaboration with artist Zoe Gilmour, residents and staff at St Vincent's Care Home in Hammersmith and Fulham and the V&A Museum. This four week project will involve a series of multi-disciplinary creative activities and interventions inspired by the V&A's Gilbert Collection, making and creating in group settings and working one-to-one at bedsides. Have a look at Lucy's recent blog on the V & A website which gives much more information about the project and the intriguing Gilbert Collection.
March 2017
Remembering Together has begun with a lovely group of participants from across Westminster all bringing their incredible life stories and experiences to our weekly Monday afternoon workshops. These sessions are ran by Kathryn and Caroline with support from the European Reminiscence Network in collaboration with this year's apprentices.
In other news, we are delighted to welcome our new part time Project Assistant and Administrator Emma to the team. Emma is a Creative Practitioner that works predominately making participatory performance and is really excited to join our small but mighty team! You'll no doubt meet her across the projects at some point.
Febuary 2017
We are recruiting for apprentices for the next Remembering Together project. Dates of project session are Mondays 3.30-5.15pm March 20th to June 19th (your commitment would be 2.30-6.30pm) Training dates 9.30am-5pm Wed 8th and Thursday 9th March with Pam Schweitzer, Director European Reminiscence Network.
Training details available here: 2017- RYCT Training NB - Can be undertaken without going on to complete the apprenticeship.
We are also recruiting for participants for Remembering Together, a 12 week project on Mondays 3.30-5.15pm for people living with a dementia and their family carer together, starting in March. We use a range of arts activities to explore shared memories and stories. Contact Kathryn on 0207312 2702 or kathryn@westminsterarts.org.uk for more information or to make a referral.
January 2017
We are holding our next Creative Befrienders training day on Saturday February 18th, 10am - 5pm at the ICA. If you are interested in working with someone living with dementia in their own home, please see application details here - Creative Befrienders 2017 advert please send your CV and cover letter to Lucy at lucy@westminsterarts.org.uk by 5pm February 16th.
