Orchestras for All Ambassador and former NOFA trumpeter, Kate, tells her story and shares top tips on how to protect your mental health.
Dia duit (hello)! My name is Kate, I am 18 years old and come from Belfast in Northern Ireland. I played the trumpet in the National Orchestra for All for two years.
During these strange times NOFA was able to provide me, and others, with a sense of normality by hosting our Spring course online. This was an amazing idea as we were all able to see each other (which is always amazing as through NOFA you meet friends for life) to create music from our homes and share it with each other.
Each morning started as it would normally, with a group warm up led by our lovely conductor Emma Oliver-Trend, via a livestream on YouTube giving us fun and interactive warm ups that we completed throughout the course. While taking part in these warm ups we were still able to communicate amongst ourselves and Emma using the live comment section to ask any questions about the exercise or music we were working on. This was actually really useful as the exercises helped us understand the music better and answered any of our questions.
This continued into our sectional rehearsals which were held on Zoom, and we were able to work through the piece and bring it all together. However, sometimes the conversation did deviate from music and we just had to share the pureness of our pets to each other! This led to us at the end of the course recording our parts and emailing them into NOFA so that they could be brought together to make a solid piece of music, which we are all extremely excited to hear and see.
Although, what is NOFA without the fun activities? Thanks to the magic of the Internet and Zoom, we were able to meet and have a chat with our resident composer Lucy Hale who, at our last course, took our ideas away to make into a piece of music which she debuted to us and we all loved. We were then able to ask her questions about herself, composing and the piece itself which was extremely insightful and interesting. I feel like this helped us to understand the piece more, and even appreciate it more, as well as the incredible work that Lucy had done for us and NOFA.
We were also able to host a recital like we usually do. Thanks to the NOFA team, myself and other young leaders (Joe, Isaac and Phoebe), were able to host an online NOFA recital which felt really special. Throughout the recital we shared where we were from and what music inspired us from where we live. Personally for my living in Ireland, I had always idolised The Undertones, Van Morrison and Beoga (who are a traditional band).
This was an extremely special moment and we were all able to share our music with each other. We were all also able to give a huge clap for our NHS and key workers to show how much we appreciate them, and if you are one of these people reading this, thank you so much for everything you are doing!
If I can spread any positivity through this, I’d like to say that this is an extremely hard time for everyone and we are all in the same boat. Coming from a place where it has the highest percentage for poor mental health in the UK, please check in with your friends and family, a text can go a long way, let alone a quick phone call!
To keep yourself busy it’s an amazing thing just to put on some music and hold a concert in the house for your family, I mean my family must love mine at 2:00am! Even picking up a book is a great way to pass the time – I would personally recommend Frankenstein, Atonement, Great Expectations or The Great Gatsby.
Thank you for reading – wash your hands and stay safe!
