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News August 15, 2016

Doing It For The Kids: TMN celebrates Why Music Matters Campaign & Music: Count Us In partnership

Doing It For The Kids: TMN celebrates Why Music Matters Campaign & Music: Count Us In partnership

Music: Count Us In is celebrating 10 years as Australia’s biggest school initiative.

2016 marks 10 years of celebrating music and music education in Australian schools. With more than 500,000 students involved each year, several million young people and thousands of teachers have been involved with Music: Count Us In since the program’s inception in 2007.

Since 2012, the program has been strengthened by collaboration with the Why Music Matters campaign – a collective of music industry professionals dedicated to reminding listeners of the value and significance of music. In collaboration with Music Australia’s Music: Count Us In, Why Music Matters has worked to enrich students’ participation in the program and assisted teachers in imparting the joy of music in their classrooms.

Music: Count Us In has benefited from the security of multi-year funding from the Australian Government via the Department of Education and Training. This type of multi-year funding is essential to many music organisations as it enables staffing and structural elements of programs to develop with sustainability and longevity. This secure funding and the capacity it brought to evolve and develop new features of the program allowed the Music: Count Us In team to confidently take up the Why Music Matters campaign’s offer to collaborate on an animation of the 2012 song.

Of Music: Count Us In’s 10th year, Music: Count Us In Ambassador, John Foreman OAM, says:

“It’s been absolutely fantastic to be involved in Music: Count Us In for the last 10 years. We have very successfully raised the status of music in schools – raised the status of individual schools and raised the status of music education on the national level. We’re not going to be completely there until we have every single student having access to first-class music education!”

John speaks to the successes of Music: Count Us In and of the road ahead: “With the rollout of the National Curriculum (The Arts) across all Australian states and territories, music has finally reached a place of recognition with the school curriculum for all Australian students. In collaboration with Why Music Matters campaign, and working with many education partners across the country, Music: Count Us In has done much to raise the profile of music and music education in Australia.”

The most essential component of Music: Count Us In each year is the Program Song. This song is written, recorded and performed by students from all over the country. The 2016 Program Song‘Let It Play’ was written by Student Songwriters Stella Kelly, Tom Meadows, Breanna Truscott and Bonnie Staude in collaboration with John Foreman OAM (Program Ambassador) and Jay Laga’aia (2016 Program Mentor). It is a song by students and for students.

With 2016 marking the 5th year of collaboration between Why Music Matters campaign and Music: Count Us In, The Why Music Matters campaign has once again delivered an animated video of the Program Song. This year’s entirely original animation was created by Small Town Animation in Sydney and is being launched today.The annual animation from the Why Music Matters campaign allows students to more completely engage with the joy and power of music in their lives. It encourages them to explore the themes of the Program Song and to actively participate in creative endeavours and collaborative music-making.

Watch the 2016 animation below:

The Why Music Matters campaign’s animation of ‘Let It Play’ will also be released with an accompanying lesson plan. This lesson plan is available to all students and teachers from participating schools. It will focus on exploring the creative process of the team at Small Town Animation and aiding comprehension of the themes, symbols, and devices of the animation. It will also aid discussion around matters of creators’ rights and help students understanding various issues around copyright.

With the help of the Why Music Matters campaign, over half a million students around Australia will experience the joy of music through Music: Count Us In. The program will culminate with a National Celebration Day on Thursday 3 November when more than half a million students sing the same song, on the same day, at the same time.

To find out more and register for Music: Count Us In 2016, head to www.musiccountusin.org.au

To find out more about the Why Music Matters campaign, head to whymusicmatters.com.au

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