Stratford Sessions featuring: Sive

It is not an unusual sight for anybody who has visited France to see hurried musicians with instruments in tow cross paths with lunchtime workers in the busiest of cities. As part of our Transition Year French program, students were charged with the task of re-creating this atmosphere at Stratford College. 

Their task required co-ordination across several working groups. It was necessary to draw up posters promoting the event, to develop a plan for turning a classroom into a small music venue and organise a strategy for recording the project. We required graphic designers, journalists, photographers, an MC, event planners and security. It was important for this event to have been a student-led project.

All students and teachers in the school were invited to attend the lunchtime concert. Our project gained a huge boost when Sive, a musician from Kildare who is building a solid reputation on the national music scene, said that she was available to perform. It was ‘standing room only’ by the time the concert began and the adjoining classrooms housed the overspill by the end of the thirty minute set.

The most striking element of Sive’s set was her voice; although it is unfair to describe her talent solely in these terms. Her musicianship engaged the young audience totally as she moved from guitar to mandolin and Kalimba while communicating lyrics that extolled the virtue of inner conflict. 

This conflict is evident across all of Sive’s songs; a voice that is equally haunting yet melodic which balances emotional intelligence with a vulnerability that contradicts the instinct to perform. It is unsurprising that a cohort of young people who are developing a greater sense of their own selves, the wider world and their place in it would have related to this. 

The academic curriculum in Irish schools is soon to be overhauled in a way that may make it unrecognisable even to students who will undergo state exams in the coming years. The concept of wellbeing is being embedded into learning models and school culture as a priority for good reason. Mandatory schooling should at least provide young people with the opportunity to express their personal natures for the collective benefit. Creative projects allow for medium-term, goal- focused opportunities to do so.    
 
The redemptive potential of music is unique. Within the inter-connected, personally distant social condition of modern technology there is advantage and shortfall. Potential exposure to new material is endless yet there is an essential lack of integrity in new platforms; all is monitored, collated and marketed accordingly.
Live performance is the perfect antidote. Our better natures still crave the opportunity of chance and the serenity of shared moments. Measured risk balances these instincts in search of memorable experience. Should they cross paths with natural talent, the benefit is difficult to understand yet alone properly quantify.
When Sive finished playing her music for us we were left with a lingering sensation that was life affirming. We turned our tables in the right direction, put the chairs back in place and returned to our ‘everyday’ function; a school of students and teachers with all the good intention and in-built conflict that this entails. We might just felt more positive about it all and understood each other a little better. 

Mr. Priestley