Lontano Education

Lontano's education and community programmes are integral to its performing activity. Their outreach encompasses a broad range of ages, cultures and social backgrounds.

Lontano is ensemble in residence at Kings College, London University. Here they have commenced a series of annual courses with students, rehearsing and performing works of undergraduate and postgraduate composers. This kind of detailed work allows many of the students to hear their compositions live for the first time and offers the opportunity for thorough interaction between composer and performer.

Lontano performances have often run in tandem with educational projects and workshops.

Their production of the opera Spirit Child, for example, was supported by a very successful education project with Hackney schools. There are also plans to run educational workshops with their next big concert project - All About Salsa, Tango and Samba.

In July of 2004 Lontano was involved in a major East London educational and community based project funded by the PRS Foundation, the Waltham Forest Arts Council and the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The project titled If Walthamstow Market Could Sing was commissioned from the composer Juwon Ogungbe with funds from the Arts Council London. The project involved four schools from the Higham Hill area of Walthamstow as well as several community music ensembles from East London.

In the same month Lontano were invited by the British Council to run workshops in Krusevo, Macedonia as part of the British Council project Blue Sky, where 140 high school students were invited to take part in two week course of citizenship and team building. At the end of Blue Sky, Lontano and 40 of the students presented a concert with music jointly composed by Juwon Ogungbe, Lontano and the participants.

In November of 2004 Lontano will be undertaking a student composition project at Boundstone Community College, Lancing (a primary, secondary and further education school for the performance arts in East Sussex) with the composer Dorothy Ker. The composition project will involve students from Kings Manor Community College, Herons Dale Special School, North Lancing School, White Styles School, Thornberry School and Oakfield School. This project is part funded by the Arts Council South East. We hope this will be part of a long-term association that will investigate the use of technology in both composition and performance arenas. The project is based on the use of sound and vision technology.