Music of Life Foundation is a small charity that uses music-making to advance education and improve the health and wellbeing of disabled children and young people aged up to 25. Thomas Blumire, a young composer living with Duchenne, has been connected with the charity since he was at school. This year Music of Life have commissioned him to compose a piece for a special celebration concert next month.
The concert is very special as all the young people performing have a physical and/or learning disability of some kind. They have been benefitting from workshops and lessons from MOLF practitioners over the course of this year, and at the concert will perform and sing Thomas’s uplifting composition “It Couldn’t Be Done”, alongside some disabled and non-disabled professional adult musicians.
Thomas has written about his composition on his blog here
“I was commissioned back in January to write a piece for their concert on 20th June in Birmingham at the Town Hall. This will be a special concert to celebrate the many achievements of this fantastic charity! I’ve been fortunate enough to have been helped a lot by MOL down the years so it was brilliant to have the opportunity to give something back! I was first introduced to the work of the charity back when I was at school. Since then, I’ve gone on to be involved with so many great projects and worked with some truly inspiring people! Like the time I did a workshop with well known composer James Macmillan and in 2012 having my own composition performed at the Temple Church in London to name just a few. I’ve now been given so much confidence and belief that I can achieve in the music world!
The composition itself is a song using words of a poem by Edgar Albert Guest called “It Couldn’t Be Done”. The words are not only upbeat, but also contain a great message that you can do anything if you put your mind to it! This fits perfectly with the aims of Music of Life to improve the lives of young disabled people and help them believe in themselves! Writing the piece presented quite a few challenges as I needed to make the music accessible to everyone involved. The piece has been written for male voice choir Canoldir and the MOL children’s choir, which is a collective of special needs schools in the Birmingham area all with a wide range of disabilities. So it needed to be fairly simple to sing, but challenging enough too and I hope I’ve managed to get the right balance. Either way it’s been a pleasure to work on!”
Teachers brave the Zipwire!
