Artist Interview - Musiko Musika
ECCO - St Paul's Church, London. Photo by Peter Lewis -Dale © Musiko Musika
Musiko Musika’s Youth Orchestra ‘ECCO’ are performing in Harmony Woods this Saturday, 16th July, as part of the Voices in Harmony concert, celebrating 10 years of children’s tree planting and 10 year’s of Andover Trees United. Read on to find out more about them and what you can expect at the concert. Make sure you book your concert tickets here.
Hello Musiko Musika! for people who do not already know, please could you briefly tell us who you are and what you do?
Musiko Musika was founded in 1998 by the musicians and educators Mauricio Venegas-Astorga and Rachel Pantin, with a mission to use world music as a tool to improve the access of children and young people to creative music making, and to support individuals and communities in valuing and sharing their cultural identity and heritage through music. We develop and deliver innovative projects and use our unique expertise to empower socially and economically disadvantaged children and young people, their families and their communities through music and cultural engagement. The organisation has its roots in the Anglo-Chilean band Quimantu, directed by Mauricio and now the two organisations work in parallel on musical, cultural and educational projects.
There are two main strands to our programme of work:
The World Music Academy strand provides world music programmes through participatory projects, the Voces Festival, performances, residencies, training and touring projects and the ECCO (Ethnic Contemporary Classical Orchestra) ensembles for young people.
The Sing and Learn projects work in the UK and in Chile with children at early years, primary and secondary level as well as with families and teachers, using music to support the development of strong speech and language skills and other areas of the curriculum including personal, social and emotional development.
Both strands are supported by an extensive digital resource of videos, audio, publications and our two apps available for Apple and Android devices (Sing Songo and World Music Academy).
We are funded by Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation and have a base at the Lyric Hammersmith in London.
How are you involved with the Harmony Woods Concert?
We are really excited to be bringing the young musicians and families of the ECCO (Ethnic Contemporary Classical Orchestra) to Harmony Woods to perform in the concert. The idea came about because we worked on a collaboration last year with Paul Sartin and the wonderful Andover Museum Loft Singers. Through that experience we found out about Andover Trees United, visited Harmony Woods and Wendy Davis kindly invited us to be part of the Harmony Woods Concert. After the two very challenging years of the pandemic we thought it would be a great experience for the young people who play in the ECCO and their families to come to Harmony Woods and find out first-hand about the work of ATU, hear the music that has been created in the community projects with Paul, Jackie and Justin and share the ECCO’s music with a new audience.
What sort of instruments do you use in your youth orchestra?
In the ECCO the young musicians play a really diverse range of instruments. The ECCO aims to create a youth music ensemble that reflects the diversity and musical interests of the young players and their families. Rooted in, but not constrained by tradition, the ECCO project is based on the concept of a classical orchestra but reaches far beyond it in terms of instrumentation, repertoire and approach. At the concert on 16th July the ECCO will be playing some familiar and some less familiar instruments including violin, viola, cello, guitar, keyboard, charango, cuatro, Kala U-bass, sikus (panpipes), sanza (thumb piano) and a wide range of percussion from around the world: mridangam (from south Asia), bombo (from the Andes in Latin America), conga and claves (Afro- Cuban), cajita Peruana and cajón (Afro-Peruvian). We also combine music technology with the acoustic instruments of the ECCO but this will not be featured in this concert.
The cajita and cajón are of particular interest because volunteers at Andover Trees United have recently been making some of these instruments using leftover timber from the cabin build. This adds a really special dimension to the connection between the ECCO and Andover Trees United.
A question for Mauricio, Laura & Rachel - What is your role in Musiko Musika?
Our role is in supporting and facilitating the young musicians, we work on and develop the repertoire and with the rest of our team share and teach the skills that are needed to play the music. Those skills are not only technical skills, but also (and perhaps more importantly) social skills, cultural skills and human skills so that together we form an ensemble that is much more than the individual parts.
If you’d like to know about our job titles Mauricio and Rachel are the Joint Artistic Directors and Laura the Assistant Director of Musiko Musika.
Are there any other key musicians that will be involved in the Harmony Woods concert?
Yes, some other musicians who work with Musiko Musika will also be involved. Juan Contento who is a guitarist and music producer and lead tutor for the ECCO Young Leaders will be taking care of the sound, George Smith will playing cello, and Nickolai Rodriguez will be playing percussion.
Do you have any other projects that people can get involved in or anything in the pipeline?
At the moment in the local area we have our Sing & Learn Covid-recovery Project at Vernham Dean Gillums and Appleshaw St Peter’s Primary Schools and Finkley Nursery. The project is working with Nursery, Reception and Year 1 children. Last week we had three lovely concerts with the schools and nursery and in September we will continue developing the project. Other projects we are developing are a project to link local schools with the ECCO young musicians in London through instrumental workshops and collaborations.
We are collaborating again with the Andover Museum Loft Singers to record the choral parts for the Misa de los Mineros and are looking forward to them performing in our Voces Festival in November. The Voces Festival 2022 will include a pre-festival performance in the Andover area with an amazing bass player Jorge Campos from Chile.
Where can we find you online to follow your work?
You can find us online at:
And also on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram