Coda Music Centre

Coda is used to being the source of emerging talent but over the summer our site itself became a star, hosting a pop video by local singer (and Coda student) Rosina Crew. I believe her protest song voices the feelings of many. What do you think?

With just 2 weeks or so to go before the completion of our new Music Therapy facility I thought it worth reminding ourselves of the buildings before work started.

We launch the new spaces at our summer party on Sunday 10th July and I'm really pleased that Guy Hughes, our longest standing therapy client will be cutting the ribbon to officially open the facility. Guy has been attending Coda since a road accident left him paralysed and, over the years has raised lots of funds to enable others to benefit from music therapy. We are really pleased to have him with us on this special occasion.

The transformation of the old stables is stunning thanks to our brilliant builders Smith & Rowsell, and we are really excited about showing everyone around. The launch takes place at 2pm and Susan and Owain from the team will be on hand to talk about their work and demonstrate some of the equipment used.

Throughout the week of the 11th July we will be hosting a series of free workshops and taster session for people with disabilities so please get in touch or check out the news pages for more information.

Look out also for more pics of the buildings at the Facebook site shortly.

I went along to the opening of new buildings at Coxlease School in the New Forest yesterday. Coxlease is a specialist residential school for boys and girls with complex behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. Coda has been working with the school for a number of years, providing music workshops and lessons and developing new skills - musical, social and educational - with boys from the most challenging circumstances in the UK.

To open the event our music leader Matt Jones gave a presentation with one pupil, Sam. They performed in front of the school, the Mayor, Senior Management fom the Priory Group (who own and run Coxlease School) and the guest of Honour, Lawrie McMenemy (in the picture).

Sam had written a song about his life and performed in public for the first time. He ended his song with an improvised message of hope to all the boys in the school that moved us all and bore testament to the power of music.

Well done Sam!

Coda counts on local business for fun and fundraising help

Last week Coda held it's first charity golf afternoon in the beautiful surroundings of the Chewton Glen Hotel. On a sunny afternoon, ten local businesses fielded teams of four people to raise funds towards the conversion of old farm buildings at our home into a new Music Therapy Facility.

The afternoon was sponsored by local accountants Prince Croft Willis and by the Chewton Glen Hotel, and we are really grateful to both partners for making the event such a success.

Thanks to the support of many local businesses, the afternoon raised just over £1,500 which will be used to help fit out the new building. Peter Rodgers, head professional at Barton on Sea Golf Club also kindly donated his services to help some rusty golf swings and give some useful coaching to the participants, while other companies including Pebble Beach Restaurant in Barton on Sea and Poole Audi donated valuable prizes to a raffle.

Thank you to everyone who supported the project.

The Music Therapy restoration project, mainly funded by a Big Lottery grant voted for by local people, is well under way and the new Therapy facility will be opening in the Summer.  More information on the project is available here.

Look out for Coda's next fundraising event, a rare solo concert by guitar virtuoso Stephen Kenyon in the pretty Redhouse Museum in Christchurch on Saturday 16th July. For more information on this and other activities please contact us here
 

The Beautiful Sound is a weekly workshop for adults with disabilities run by Coda as part of our Music for Health Programme.

It takes place every Thursday at The Regent Centre in Christchurch and is led by Stuart Jebbitt with support from Liz and Andy. It's a brilliant session and recently the group recorded their first song, a post punk classic called T-shirt which you can listen to here. We start the workshops again on 12 May, next Thursday and welcome new people to the group. It costs £6 per person and the session runs from 10.30am to midday. Please get in touch if you would like to come along.

Owl in the sun

One of our vocal students is in a band called Owl In The Sun, an original 6 piece band who, very excitingly, have managed to get one of the songs from their album Outside The City Way of Things air time on Radio 1’s playlist this week. Their song Flags will be played during the following shows:

Monday: Fearne Cotton (10am-12.45pm)

Tuesday: Scott Mills (4-7pm)

Wednesday: Dev – early b’fast (4-6.30am)

Thursday; Greg James (1-4pm)

Saturday: Jo Whiley (1-4pm)

Sunday: Edith Bowman (7-10am)

Nick Grimshaw and Annie Mac (10pm-midnight)

Please tune in if you can!!! More info can be found on their web site: www.owlinthesun.com  

You can also download their songs from itunes.
 

During the winter months we are taking the opportunity to run a host of activities at the weekends alongside our regular programme of instrumental music lessons and tuition. Last week we ran a series of taster sessions for children with disabilities and differences, providing a chance to try out piano, guitar, and drumming and to find out more about music therapy. This week staff got together for some training, exploring teaching techniques with people with special needs ad to discuss key development plans at Coda, and next week sees the next instalment of our creative music programme, the Music Cauldron, exporing composition and musical patterns. I'm finding while its cold and wet, making music is a great way to keep warm with friends!

On Tuesday Coda hosted a visit from a Meridian ITV news team to make a film about our People's Millions Lottery project. Despite the driving wind and rain a whole host of our friends came down to take part in the filming and my thanks go to everyone from Linwood School and Wallisdown Heights in Bournemouth and to Guy Hughes and Chris Wyatt, Derek from the Phoenix Stroke Support Group and their families and to everyone else who helped out or came down on the day.

Over the coming weeks we will be spreading the news of our Lottery project to potential voters far and wide in the hope of securing as many votes as possible on the 22nd. Help us with the fanfare!