On 6 June this year, the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings during the Second World War, children across the country will be raising their voices in song to remember those involved in this momentous event. The creative force behind this project is HMDT Music, an organisation promoting arts education amongst children and young people. HMDT Music has received a commission from the Royal British Legion to create two commemoration songs for this milestone anniversary. Tertia Sefton-Green, creative director of HMDT Music, describes how the organisation works: ‘We approach a topic from a slightly different angle. All the commissions we have created link into the curriculum and we develop the themes using the arts as a means of telling history.’
This won't be HMDT Music's first project which reflects on the World Wars. The biggest of these was Hear Our Voice, which looked at the Holocaust through the eyes of its child victims. Following I'll Be Seeing You about the Home Front was Trench Brothers (covered in MT November 2018) which examined the stories of Black and Indian soldiers in the First World War. It was a touring exhibition of Trench Brothers that inspired the Royal British Legion to approach HMDT Music and commission this commemorative project.
The songs will be created under the artistic guidance of HMDT Music by lyricist Stephen Plaice and composer Matthew King. ‘We work with a number of artists and educators,’ explains Sefton-Green. ‘We rarely just say “Get on with it”, we work in a collaborative way.’ Good partnerships, she says, contribute to a successful collaboration. A teachers’ pack of resources will accompany the songs, including activities such as letter-writing to support the curriculum. Given the focus of HMDT Music's past work, the brief from the Royal British Legion naturally places emphasis on remembrance.
The songs will be available to download from HMDT Music's website free of charge. ‘The focus is to get as many schools as possible to sing those songs on 6 June,’ says Sefton-Green. They are aimed at pupils in KS2 and KS3. There will be differentiated activities in the pack for older or more advanced students and teachers are encouraged to use them as best fits their own classes.
I ask Sefton-Green what children will gain from these songs: is the aim primarily historical or musical learning? She emphasizes that the storytelling and the music went hand in hand: ‘We rarely do a project where it's just about music,’ she says. ‘It's always about integrating it into other things.’ A topic on the scale of the Second World War includes a wealth of stories and experiences and much of the work that went on behind the scenes of the battlefield had huge implications on the way we live now. In particular, Sefton-Green talks of the codebreakers, meteorologists, and engineers. She explains how their technological advances link to today's world: ‘It's the minutiae of the story that we're trying to do. It's relevant because you wouldn't be using a computer in this way if the codebreakers hadn't developed the early computer in order to break codes.’ She talks of Operation Overlord and the Mulberry harbours, explaining that these events are part of children's heritage: ‘D-Day was very much a huge collaboration. We're finding all the little stories.’
Study of the World Wars is commonplace for almost every child in the country and Sefton-Green is keen to note that we have our way of life because of others’ sacrifices. It pays to ensure children really take in the significance of these historical events in a way that is appropriate for their age. Sefton-Green feels that focussing on the people behind the scenes, ‘provides an entry point of interest’. Singing helps to bring these stories alive; the melody of the song lends an extra dimension to the words, which linger once the lesson has ended.
Sefton-Green is clear about her vision for music in schools: ‘It's about embedding the arts, to enhance the curriculum,’ she says, with an awareness of how much primary school teachers have to fit into the school day. ‘A big focus of HMDT Music is that you don't have to stop what you're doing to do this – it's all about how to do it. Lessons are linked to the curriculum.’
While this project is still in the making, there are plans to build on past projects. This enables the learning to continue: ‘We've set up a legacy for the projects, a series of National Commemoration Days where we go into schools.’ These days always have a collaborative aspect; they are run in a workshop style with a variety of activities and children come together to share their work. The songs to commemorate D-Day will be available in the coming months. ‘This is a new collaboration with the Royal British Legion,’ concludes Sefton-Green. ‘It's an exciting challenge.’
