Affordable and flexible music for your primary school ensemble
Finding suitable material for young children who are relatively inexperienced on their instruments can be quite a challenge, but it is important to get them playing in a group as soon as possible. My arrangements and compositions are truly flexible and will work with virtually any number of participants playing pretty much any selection of instruments you might find in a primary school. The recordings are just intended to give you an idea of what a piece might sound like.
I have included parts for as many instruments as possible (they do not necessarily all appear in the score if two instruments are doubled), including all woodwind, brass, percussion, strings, classroom percussion, harp and guitar. There is a straightforward piano part for the teacher or an assistant.
If you think I have not quite covered all eventualities, please feel free to offer some feedback!
Allegro (from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons)
This arrangement of Vivaldi’s famous melody is intended for a mixture of beginners and more intermediate players; fingerings or slide positions are given in some parts, and it should be possible to...
Dead Dog Boogie
'Dead Dog' is actually a kind of chocolate cake and nothing whatsoever to do with domesticated quadrupeds (in spite of the picture on the cover!) This piece was conceived for a junior orchestra...
Breakdown Blues
I wrote Breakdown Blues to use on an inter-schools orchestral playing day. The pupils were all primary school age and it was a large group (around 60) with a good balance of instruments. The piece...
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Scores
Barcarolle (Offenbach)
This arrangement is intended to offer maximum flexibility for virtually any group of inexperienced instrumentalists. It will work with minimal instrumentation, that being the piano part and one of...
Breakdown Blues
I wrote Breakdown Blues to use on an inter-schools orchestral playing day. The pupils were all primary school age and it was a large group (around 60) with a good balance of instruments. The piece...
All Through the Night
You almost certainly will not need all the parts provided with this arrangement! As with all of my Junior Orchestra pieces, it is designed to work with minimal forces – the large number of parts...
Allegro (from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons)
This arrangement of Vivaldi’s famous melody is intended for a mixture of beginners and more intermediate players; fingerings or slide positions are given in some parts, and it should be possible to...
Dead Dog Boogie
'Dead Dog' is actually a kind of chocolate cake and nothing whatsoever to do with domesticated quadrupeds (in spite of the picture on the cover!) This piece was conceived for a junior orchestra...