Royal Albert Hall, Monday 18 March 2019

The logistics of getting 1,600 primary school students to the Royal Albert Hall, organising them into vast choirs, which then had to move place completely for the second half, was worthy of the Edinburgh Tattoo in its own right. That they also managed to present an immensely moving and pertinent multi-media work was entirely unexpected.

This was the culmination of work across 58 primary school organised by the Buckinghamshire Music Trust. The first half was fairly conventional. Eight songs for massed choir, including a significant amount of movement, clapping and extraneous (and quite deliberate) noise, formed a well-structured sequence under the guidance of Fay Hayhurst. The songs grew in impact with an exhilarating version of Sednato E Zore Dos with is overtones of Carmina Burana and the sentimental but affective I am the Gentle Light.

Dare to Dream was on a totally different level. It came about as a partnership project between Buckinghamshire Music Trust, Garsington Opera and Rosetta Life, bringing all of their skills and professionalism to create as broad a base for creativity as possible. It also enabled an art exhibition to be mounted on the day of paintings by Syrian children who had been involved in the project.

Over many months Buckinghamshire schools have been linked to schools in Bangladesh, Syria and Uganda, often via skype so that they were closely interactive. Out of this grew a series of stories which drew together the experiences of young people across the world and their dreams for the future. While their circumstances are very different, their hopes, their dreams prove to be remarkably similar. The work was crafted and composed by Hannah Conway, who also introduced and conducted it.

There were many wonderful moments in the musical score, but the presentation used the large screen to link us to the three other countries and fluid movement on stage, plus a continuing change of musical impact was entirely engaging.

The song of the fish – where all the children, regardless of their country, had made paper fish which swam towards each other – was both moving and joyous, and led into the final section of hope. Sometimes we falter/ Sometimes we fall/ Then we get up and stand/ Stronger than before they all sing, and at that point it really was all, for the massed singers from the first half joined with them and all 1,600 children were singing together with the children from across the world.

The message was clear, obvious and entirely apt. Yes of course it was political, but as we have seen from the children’s marches against climate change, it seems at the moment that in many ways our children are more focused on solving the problems than many adults are.