Type Of Organisation: Choir

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About

The Pound Arts Trust is a thriving arts organisation based in north Wiltshire, core funded by Wiltshire Council and Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation. The organisation delivers live performance, visual arts, participatory activities and film across three distinct strands of work:

The Pound: is a historic Grade II listed building converted into a 21st century arts centre acting as the hub for the arts in north Wiltshire and beyond, presenting a year-round programme of professional music, theatre, dance, visual arts, talks, comedy, film and participatory work. The Pound’s various rehearsal and workshop rooms are hired by various community groups and artists and we have three artists’ studio spaces and a community workshop space. The Pound has a popular fully licensed café bar.

Rural Arts Touring: The rural touring programme for Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire works with volunteers in rural communities across the two areas to deliver professional live performance events year-round.

Two annual festivals:
• Blue Sky Festival: A celebratory summer festival with outdoor performance, participatory activities and showcase opportunities for the community.
• Magic and Mayhem Festival: An innovative festival in the autumn that celebrates Corsham’s heritage through cabaret, illusion, film, comedy and music.

Our Creative Learning programme delivers high quality, innovative arts projects with young people living in Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire.

We offer year round opportunities for people to engage with music (as well as other art forms) through both music tuition based in our venue and also bespoke creative project work. We are also the home for Corsham Wind Band which has been engaging young people with music for many years. We have two dedicated Music Pods (soundproofed studios/rehearsal rooms).

We are also a Trinity Centre for music exams.

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What I / we help young people achieve

Pound Arts Creative Learning Strategy

“Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement.” (Ken Robinson)

The Pound Arts Trust is committed to developing opportunities for people to engage with creative learning activity that is relevant to them, contemporary in content and high quality. This activity will be aimed at all ages but with a particular commitment to children and young people. We demonstrate this commitment by working with our participants to deliver a creative learning programme which is responsive to need of the local community and delivered by professional artists and practitioners.

Our programme focuses on creating opportunities across a wide age range, ensuring young people develop as artists and creative entrepreneurs while the older community can remain active and socially connected through participation in creative learning.

We focus our creative learning work in four strands:

• Children & Young People e.g. youth theatre, community projects etc.
• Education, Skills and Training e.g. School Without Walls, curriculum workshops etc.
• Work in rural locations/market towns e.g. young promoter schemes etc.
• Life-long Learning e.g. Adult workshops

Our ethos

The creative learning programme offers opportunities to explore activities including music, dance, visual arts, film, drama and literature which are the building blocks of artistic expression and creativity. We aspire to empower participants of all ages to engage with communication through the arts as a result of the time they spend with us. We believe that our organisation can help young people to explore, understand and question the world that they live in. We believe that they need a voice to express their subsequent discoveries and that we can help them to articulate this voice. We can also provide them with a stage on which they can make their voices heard. We believe in the concept that curiosity is the engine of achievement and by introducing young people to high quality art and artists, we awaken curiosity. We then have two roles:

• To pass on skills and techniques of creative expression
• To provide a platform to showcase the work that young people create

As an ACE funded NPO arts organisation our work is carefully scrutinised and monitored. We also have an in house evaluation model which is used to measure impact and quality.

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Opportunities for children & young people

• To learn to play an instrument and / or develop skills on an instrument
• To learn to sing
• To create / write music and / or lyrics
• To develop recording /production skills
• To play, perform music with others
• To learn things about oneself , other subjects or life-skills through musical activity
• To work with and support other young musicians
• To develop their wellbeing

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Times

• Term Time
• After School
• Weekends
• School Holidays
• Project based

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Working with special needs

We have worked with people with special needs. We have a strand of work called SenseAbility which is a platform for adressing diveristy in our community and on our stages.

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