17 Mar 2020

Coronavirus Update

‼️ Update ‼️

Due to the government announcements yesterday, all face to face lessons and classes are now cancelled until further notice.

Students and parents - please check your email for updated information about moving lessons online. 

Please get in touch if you have any questions! 

Thank you all for understanding and co-operating 💕

16 Mar 2020

Update from ABRSM

Our students had been working very hard and are obviously very disappointed that their exams are cancelled. 

However we do understand it’s 100% necessary to keep everyone safe and healthy, and we thank the ABRSM for the constant updates. 

Students - we will be able to reschedule for later in the year...Don’t worry, the hard work will not go to waste! ⭐️

15 Mar 2020

Coronavirus Update

🎵Update🎵

The well-being of our music school students and their families remains our top priority! 

At this time, all lessons and classes are still going ahead as normal. Information has been sent, by email, to all students and parents regarding our contingency plans for lessons, should the schools close. 

Obviously our hygiene procedure will continue - all instruments are disinfected between students and everyone is encouraged to wash their hands before and after their lessons. Please do not attend lessons if you have any symptoms or have been travelling recently.

Don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions! 😀

26 Mar 2020

Alan Silvestri - HMMT Featured Musician

The final Featured Musician of the month is American composer and conductor, Alan Silvestri born on this day in 1950. 
He is best known for his film and television scores and has frequently collaborated with director Robert Zemeckis.

He started his film/television composing career in 1972 at age 21 composing the score for the low-budget action film The Doberman Gang. From 1977 to 1983, Silvestri served as the main composer for the television series CHiPs, writing music for 95 of the series' 139 episodes.

He met film director Robert Zemeckis when the two worked together on Zemeckis's film Romancing the Stone (1984). Since then, Silvestri has composed the music for all of Zemeckis' movies, including the Back to the Future trilogy (1985–1990), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Death Becomes Her (1992), Forrest Gump (1994), Contact (1997), Cast Away (2000), The Polar Express (2004), Beowulf (2007), A Christmas Carol (2009), Flight (2012) and The Walk (2015).

In 1989, Silvestri composed the score for the James Cameron-directed film The Abyss. Since 2001, Silvestri has also collaborated regularly with director Stephen Sommers, scoring the films The Mummy Returns (2001), Van Helsing (2004), and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
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Silvestri has also composed music for television series, including T. J. Hooker (one episode), Starsky & Hutch (three episodes), Tales from the Crypt (seven episodes). In 2014, he composed the award-winning music for the science documentary series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.

Silvestri has received two Academy Award nominations, one for Best Original Score for Forrest Gump (1994) and one for Best Original Song for "Believe" on The Polar Express soundtrack. He also received two Golden Globe nominations: Best Score for Forrest Gump and Best Song for The Polar Express.

Silvestri was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music in 1995. He has also received nine Grammy Award nominations, winning two awards – Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, for "Believe" from The Polar Express in 2004 and Best Instrumental Composition, for "Cast Away End Credits" from Cast Away in 2002. 

His other nominations were for Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special and Best Instrumental Composition, for Back to the Future in 1985, Best Album of Original Instrumental Background Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television, for Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988, Best Instrumental Composition, for "Who Framed Roger Rabbit Suite" in 1989, Best Pop Instrumental Performance, for "I'm Forrest...Forrest Gump (The Feather Theme)" in 1994, Best Instrumental Composition, for Avengers: Infinity War in 2018 and Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media, for Avengers: Endgame in 2019.

He has won two Emmys, both for Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey – Outstanding Main Title Theme Music and Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for the episode "Standing Up in the Milky Way". He has also won the Saturn Award for Best Music three times, for his scores for Predator (1987), Back to the Future Part III (1989/90) and Van Helsing (2004).

On September 23, 2011, he was awarded with the Max Steiner Film Music Achievement Award by the City of Vienna at the yearly film music gala concert Hollywood in Vienna.

Have a listen to the Grammy worthy song from Polar Express.

Keep an eye out for next month’s Featured Musicians coming soon!

25 Mar 2020

Aretha Franklin - HMMT Featured Musician

Today’s Featured Musician is a whopper! 

The American singer, songwriter, pianist and civil rights activist Aretha Louise Franklin was born on this day in 1942.

She began her career as a child singing gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father C. L. Franklin was minister and at the age of 18, she embarked on a secular-music career as a recording artist for Columbia Records. 

While her career did not immediately flourish, she found acclaim and commercial success after signing with Atlantic Records in 1966. Hit songs such as "Respect", "Chain of Fools", "Think", "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman", "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", and "I Say a Little Prayer", propelled her past her musical peers. 

By the end of the 1960s, Aretha Franklin had come to be known as "The Queen of Soul".

Franklin continued to record acclaimed albums such as I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967), Lady Soul (1968), Spirit in the Dark (1970), Young, Gifted and Black (1972), Amazing Grace (1972), and Sparkle (1976) before experiencing problems with her record company. 

In 1979, she left Atlantic and signed with Arista Records. She appeared in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers before releasing the successful albums Jump to It (1982), Who's Zoomin' Who? (1985), and Aretha (1986) on the Arista label. 

In 1998, Franklin returned to the Top 40 with the Lauryn Hill-produced song "A Rose Is Still a Rose"; later, she released an album of the same name which was certified gold. That same year, she earned international acclaim for her performance of "Nessun dorma" at the Grammy Awards; she filled in at the last minute for Luciano Pavarotti, who canceled his appearance after the show had already begun. 

In a widely noted performance, she paid tribute to 2015 honoree Carole King by singing "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" at the Kennedy Center Honors.

Franklin recorded 112 charted singles on Billboard, including 77 Hot 100 entries, 17 top-ten pop singles, 100 R&B entries, and 20 number-one R&B singles. She is the most charted female artist in history. 

She won 18 Grammy Awards, including the first eight awards given for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance (1968–1975). Franklin is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 75 million records worldwide.

Franklin received numerous honors throughout her career. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1987, she became the first female performer to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She also was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2012.

In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine ranked her number one on its list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" and number nine on its list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".

The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2019 awarded Franklin a posthumous special citation "for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades."

I asked on Instagram for your favourite Aretha Franklin song, and this was no doubt the winner - enjoy!

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Keep an eye out for the final Featured Musician of the month coming soon!