Music for all in Katowice: having fun and cooperating to inspire social change

‘MOVE YOUR BRASS FESTIVAL’: WHEN MUSIC INSPIRES EVERY CORNER OF KATOWICE

From 24th to 26th of May Katowice turned into the real capital of brass bands thanks to Move Your Brass – the first edition of an international brass music festival. It was inaugurated in a public space of Katowice’s market square, with four different brass bands involved – from a colliery band, through community and youth bands to a Police band.

It was a kind of a reference to Silesian admiration for music and community banding. The vice Mayor of Katowice, who opened the festival, emphasized the role of music in Katowice history and future. Although the festival was inaugurated in the very heart of the city, many of the activities were dedicated to local communities where URBACT tools are used for social change.

The main international festival guest was the Lydbrook Band from Great Britain, which brought to Katowice not only four performances but also a series of workshops and demo actions for the communities. The first of them took place in Załęże district, on the football field of the local primary school. About 50 spectators, including pupils, parents and teachers – but also inhabitants of the area – came to see and listen the superb brass repertoire.

The compositions were specially chosen for this particular performance so that the listeners could feel familiar with the sound of the brass instrument. There were solo parts for tubas, trombones and even the post horn used in Post Horn Gallop.

The spectators, also thanks to the sunny weather, were just delighted. So did the people from Murcki district, who came to see the Police Forces Representative Orchestra in a local catholic church. The Murcki concert was related to the long history of local amateur banding and project contribution into making culture and music available even in the most remote areas of the city. There were around 60 people attending the concert, including the community and music teachers of the primary school with which the URBACT ONSTAGE cooperates.

The festival didn’t forget about the kids from the city center – one of the strategic areas of focus of the project. There were special educational concerts for the youngest kids in the building of the Katowice City of Gardens, which was run by the Knurów Colliery Band. Around 50 kids, parents and grandparents had fun with music quizzes, experiencing each instrument, watching movies, dancing and singing.

URBACT POLISH CAMPUS: SHARING AND LEARNING FOR A BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE

Katowice City of Gardens’ – the city’s Institution of Culture and local partner of the URBACT ONSTAGE project – team took part in the URBACT Polish Campus (17-18 April 2019, in Łódź), one of the biggest URBACT Campus in Europe with up to 40 representatives from 18 cities!

Since we at Katowice City of Gardens are working with almost 20 projects in the whole Poland, the Campus was a perfect occasion to get some practical knowledge about them, share some valuable experience and find new inspirations. We finally understood the whole idea and concept of the project, the role of integration and participation. We realized that we need to communicate with our stakeholders in a better way and try to understand their needs, problems, dreams – as it is the only way to engage them in the process of changing their lives through the music as the URBACT ONSTAGE project pursues.

At the Campus we were discussing not only about the level of integration in our city – official structures and institutions – but also about the involvement of our local partners. We diagnosed that, for example, we need more representatives of local orchestras in our URBACT local group as a way to reinforce the cooperation with the local conductors and musicians, to rebuild a natural connection with mentors and pupils and finally to find continuators of the tradition.

We have created a map of the stakeholders and the level of their interests to understand how we can involve them more and permanently. This is a huge challenge for each URBACT local group. We exchanged some ideas and ways to create an URBACT team. Campus had a form of intensive work group so we’ve been cooperating with the leaders from other cities. We were discussing the barriers of the transfer and how we can deal with them, how we can use the tools from URBACT to solve our local problems and – ultimately – improve our city’s quality of life.

Text by Marlena Hermanowicz. for further information please contact her at marlena.hermanowicz@miasto-ogrodow.eu

Visit the network's page: ONSTAGE