We are delighted to welcome Madeline De Berrié, who is our new Fundraising Officer. Madeline has worked for music education and outreach organisations the Fosbrooks Folk Education Trust, Music First, and the Music in Secondary Schools Trust, and she is a founding member of Arts at the Intersection, a collaboration with Spirit of Peace and Unity Music. Madeline is a freelance singer and instrumentalist specialising in historical performance.Apollo Music Projects is hugely grateful to Hayley Pullen, our outgoing Fundraising Officer, for all her fantastic work over the years. We wish her all the best for the future.

Csenge Herman, our Charity Administrator has left AMP to pursue other avenues, and we want to thank her for her time working for us, and wish her good luck in the next phase of her career. We are pleased to announce that Dorothy Hoskins, our Schools Administrator, will be taking on the role of Charity Administrator as well.

We are delighted to report that we have exceeded our target of raising £10,000 in the Big Give Christmas Challenge and with matched funding, we were able to raise £20,691. With Gift Aid and after the small admin fees, that makes a take home total of £22,298!Thank you to everyone, including the Friends of Apollo Music Projects, who donated and helped us reach our goal during this campaign - we couldn't have done it without you! We are also grateful to our Champion charity The Childhood Trust and to Pauline & Ian Howat, who generously pledged to match £10,000 worth of donations.Thank you for helping us bring the magic of live classical music into underprivileged schools!

WELCOMING NEW TRUSTEES

We are delighted to welcome two new trustees, Rachel Brewster and Peter Ptashko. Rachel has worked in communications for over 20 years, the past 13 in the education sector, where she became acutely aware of the declining opportunities in the creative arts that are available to children nationally. A passionate believer in the value of a fully rounded education and the importance of music and the arts in developing children’s imagination and creativity, Rachel wants to spread the message about the work of Apollo Music Projects, to ensure that as many children as possible can experience the magic that AMP musicians bring into schools.

Peter is a social entrepreneur, funder and currently an independent entrepreneurship change management consultant working with a range of clients in both the Public and Private sectors, holding a series of leadership and Board-level positions across these two sectors (with a focus on the sectors of Education, the Arts and Music).

These are very exciting times for Apollo Music Projects as we expand our programme to reach more children each year. We look forward to working with our new trustees to take Apollo Music Projects on the next phase of this exciting journey.

We are delighted to announce that Jo Boswell has succeeded Simon Smith as Chair of Trustees. Jo is a fantastic addition to the AMP board, and has the ideal background and experience to help guide Apollo Music Projects in the next exciting stage of our development."It is a privilege to step up to the role of Chair of Apollo Music Projects. In the short time that I’ve been involved with the charity I’ve been hugely impressed with the impact the programme has had on the schools involved, as well as the dedication of the small team involved in running this. There is a wealth of knowledge and experience on the trustee board, and I look forward to working with them and the Apollo team as we expand our reach to more schools and children. I would like to pay tribute to retiring trustees, Simon Smith and Peter Brunner, who have both played an important role in the charity’s expansion journey so far."

We want to say a huge Thank You to two Trustees who are stepping down from the AMP board. Simon Smith has been a fantastic Chair and Trustee for the past three years, and will be greatly missed for his clear thinking and passion for what we do. Peter Brunner has been a Trustee for 7 years, and has helped guide us from the small charity he joined to the thriving organisation he leaves. Many many thanks to both."I remain as passionate about what Apollo does and achieves as the day I started, which makes stepping down hard. But having worked with my successor as Chair, the incumbent Trustees and interviewed both new Trustees I know Apollo has the right leadership and Trustees to support the next stage of its journey." Simon Smith"I am certain that Apollo, under your guidance, has a very bright future, in whichever direction it expands, and I look forward to supporting it as a friend over the years to come. There cannot be many similar charities with such an excellent and committed  board of trustees." Peter Brunner

We are delighted to announce our first primary school in Brent, Salusbury Primary School. It is part of our exciting programme for 2019-20, including 23 primary and special schools returning to the programme and 5 further schools new to the programme. Other schools joining this year are Morningside, Gayhurst and Kingsmead primary schools in Hackney and St. Luke's CE and St. Margaret's primary schools in Camden. We still have a few places remaining for new schools, so please contact us if you are interested in taking part.

A wonderful occasion as Braimah and Konya Kanneh-Mason, our newest Apollo Associate Artists, visited London Fields Primary School to play to KS2, including Year 4 Kanneh-Mason class! The children were understandably thrilled at meeting their heroes and were an amazing audience. The children wrote delightful letters to Braimah and Konya: "You have made me as happy as I can be. I thought music wasn't my thing, but when I saw you, you inspired me so now I want to do piano and violin." Thanks to both wonderful artists for an amazing and inspiring afternoon.

We are pleased to announce that Jo Boswell has accepted the role of Vice Chair. Jo brings a wealth of knowledge into the team and is a keen amateur musician herself. We very much look forward to using Jo's expertise to expand the reach of Apollo Music Projects.

We are now finalising our list of participating schools for 2019-20, and have a few places left. We look forward to adding more schools next year, with several new schools already signed up to start in September. If you are interested in joining the Apollo programme, please get in touch, or if you know of a school that would. be interested please pass on the details. Next year will be our most ambitious yet, with 30 primary school places on offer.

We are delighted to announce that our Schools Administrator Oliver Pashley has been appointed as Sub-Principal Clarinet with the wonderful Britten Sinfonia. A fantastic job and well-deserved. Sadly this means that Oli will not be able to continue as Apollo Schools Administrator. He has been a great member of our team, and a pleasure to work with. We wish him all success in his new role. Csenge Herman, our General Administrator will take on the additional role of Schools Administrator later this month, so everything will continue to run smoothly.

We are delighted to be starting this year's series of chamber orchestra workshops for children taking part in our programmes. The first of eight workshops will take place at the wonderful Great Hall, Leyton on Tuesday 5 February. The programme will feature music by Bach, Mozart, Piazzolla and The Simpsons Theme, and the children will have the opportunity to meet the musicians and see the instruments up close. Further workshops will take place at The Dream Centre, Tottenham and Regent Hall (Salvation Army), Oxford Street. Please contact us for further information, or if you would like to attend as an observer.

On 18 January the Secretary of State for Culture, Jeremy Wright, made a speech about the importance and value of the arts.‘… engagement with the arts is linked with higher happiness and self-esteem in young people, helping them to foster feelings of personal pride and achievement.’

David Chernaik, AMP conductor and CEO, rehearsing and talking about the orchestra as part of a documentary shown on French TV on 6 January.

Séquence chef d'Orchestre from David Chernaik on Vimeo.

A big THANK YOU to everyone who donated during the Big Give Christmas Challenge! We reached our target of £10,000, all of which has been matched, giving us a total of £21,850 (with Gift Aid)! We are so grateful to our supporters who help us in our important work.

We are happy to announce that Simon Smith, currently treasurer of Apollo Music Projects, has agreed to take on the role of Chair of Trustees. We very much look forward to having Simon's fresh approach taking us into the next chapter of our musical journey. It is also with great pleasure that we welcome Philippa Naylor as our new Treasurer. We are delighted to welcome Philippa to the Apollo board.

On Tuesday 3rd July we welcomed over 1250 children, teachers and parents to the Hackney Empire for our final concerts of the year performed by the Apollo Chamber Orchestra. It was a fitting end to a wonderful year delivering our programme to 23 different schools across Hackney, Haringey, Camden, Islington and Tower Hamlets.Our musicians performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral" conducted by David Chernaik, CEO of Apollo Music Projects, with spoken introductions and musical examples.We spoke to some of the children afterwards, who were thrilled by the performance: “You can just relax and listen”, “It sounded amazing - there was so much detail”Thank you to everyone who joined us including the Friends of Apollo Music Projects and our Trustees. We were also delighted to have been joined by Cllr Clare Potter, Speaker of Hackney (pictured below with pupils from St John and St James Primary School in Hackney).“It was wonderful to see so many children completely absorbed in Beethoven’s music in this amazing venue” said David Chernaik, conductor and CEO of Apollo Music Projects, “The level of concentration from the children was remarkable.”