Immanuel Music School 2015

Some statistics:

Students at the Immanuel Music School:

The Immanuel Music School had 96 members in 2015 (124 members in 2014). To be a member you have to attend rehearsals at least ten times.

30 of the children have had lessons through the Immanuel Day Nursery (Kindergarten). The older students take lessons after school in the afternoons and evenings.17 of them come from the area close to Home of Praise,

46 students receive their lessons at Immanuel Church and 1 student studies at Samrong Lutheran Church. 24 of the older students started to play violin in Immanuel Day Nursery.

In addition to offering free music lessons to children and youths in the deprived area surrounding Immanuel Church and the Home of Praise Community Center, Immanuel Music School also wishes to expand the work to other areas and churches in Bangkok and eventually to other parts of Thailand.

At present two of our full time students come from other parts of the country: Chiang Rai in North and Buriram in North East Thailand. Immanuel Music School has also been teaching in Samrong Church once a week (1 student attending regularly and some other kids attending occasionally) and 4 violin students playing in the Immanuel Orchestra attend Ruampraporn Church. At present we have not managed to find time to go there and teach them individually.

2015 has been a year where we have tried to emphasise a higher level of teaching quality and artistic excellence. Sinsupa Pantawong (Fai) a violin student at the school was accepted to study her Bachelors in Music Performance (violin) at Mahidol College of Music in May 2015.

Reehpaw Saenthawidet (Fiw) has been a full time scholarship student at Immanuel Music School for the third year. From February 2015 Narongthep Somphorn (Best) and from June 2015 Anongnath Duangwong (Ice) have also been accepted as full time scholarship students at Immanuel Music School. musical studies. The students also get the opportunity to practice what they learn by performing for and teaching the younger students. This becomes an example which we hope the younger children will want to emulate.
The scholarship program gives the students a well rounded musical education which can prepare them for advanced

Many of the most eager students in the Immanuel have attended even more lessons and rehearsals in 2015. This not only includes orchestra rehearsals but also sectionals, individual lessons (violin, viola, cello, guitar, ukulele and piano) and music theory lessons.

On the other hand the total number of students attending Immanuel Music School this year has dropped.

In 2015 19 students (2014: 12 students) have come between 116-195 times, (3-6 times a week)

16 students (2014: 29 students) have come between 40-100 times (1-2 times a week).

35 students (2014: 48 students) have come between 20-39 times during 2015.

26 students (2014: 34 students) have come between 10-19 times (too little to make much progress)

The age of the students attending Immanuel Music School in 2015 ranges from 5 to 24. 10 students are aged between 19-24 years old, 5 were high school students, 18 were secondary school students, 43 were primary school students and 20 were kindergarten students.

Immanuel Music School begins to feel like home for many of our students. When they attend Immanuel Church or Home of Praise for music lessons many also join other activities like English lessons, Boys Brigade, Camps and Sunday school. 23 of the members in Immanuel Music School, 2015 have been baptized.

Music Staff at Immanuel Music School:

We are very thankful for all the time, effort and knowledge given to our students during 2015!

Jonathan Mann, famous orchestra conductor from the UK began as the Artistic Director for the Immanuel Orchestras from 1^st June, 2015. Before this he had worked as a guest conductor for three concerts. He has given much of his time to the Immanuel Music School free of charge and has managed to improve the orchestra’s playing to such a high level of quality. This has led to people in the wider Bangkok community noticing this exciting project and wanting to attend Immanuel Orchestra concerts. It has also led to people in the Bangkok Arts community wanting to help the project and collaborate with our young musicians.

Varin Artvilai (Ton) has been a full time teacher and conductor in Immanuel Music School since June 2015. Prior to this he was paid part time for several months. Ton completed his Bachelors in Performance (Violin) at Mahidol College of Music in April 2014. He started to learn violin at the Immanuel Music School and at Home of Praise when he was young child. During 2015 he has taken on greater responsibility for the music school in general, the organisation and training of the orchestras, individual teaching and music theory lessons. He has also organized many small performances for our young musicians.

Solveig Meling Johannessen started Immanuel Music School together with Dag, her husband in the year 2000. Due to sick leave and more administrative work she has not been able to teach as much as she previously could at the Immanuel Music School. Because of this you can see from the statistics that this has affected what the music school can offer small kids particularly the new beginners at the Immanuel Day Nursery.

Tanutt Tanavoravongsa (Tong) has been teaching piano in Immanuel every Monday for 3-5 hours per week since 22^nd June 2015. This is a valuable skill we can offer our students.

Tapalin Charoensook (Soi) has been teaching Fiw cello lessons free of charge for the whole year.

Saara Nordblom has been helping out occasionally teaching cello students during 2015.

Scholarship students Fiw and Best have been helping to teach individual lessons the whole year as did Fai the first 4 months before she started at Mahidol. Our other scholarship student Ice has also helped a lot over the past seven months.

Kiattisak Boonman (Man) is the youth worker at the Home of Praise Community Centre. During 2015 he helped the music school by teaching ukulele and guitar.

Activities in Immanuel Music School during 2015:

For the first time the orchestras had 3 major concerts during one year. This could not been achieved without our two excellent conductors Jonathan Mann and Varin Artvilai and much appreciated help from the Bangkok Opera Foundation. We were also supported by other talented young musicians and various teachers and students from Bangkok’s international school community. It was a very special experience to have the opportunity to perform with violinist Sittichai Pengcharoen as soloist for Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto No. 5 together with the Immanuel Orchestra at our concert in October.

A special thanks also to composer/double bassist Stephen Maniam who travelled all the way from Malaysia just to play with Immanuel Orchestra for our Christmas Concert. At that concert we also had a guest choir performing: the Siam Orpheus Chamber Choir. This was an exciting opportunity for Maestro Somtow Sucharitkul to collaborate with the orchestra and choir on excerpts from Handel’s Messiah. Thank you everyone!

Immanuel Music School also arranged one smaller solo concert and has participated in 8 services (5 at Immanuel, 2 at Soi 50 and 1 at Baan Phu Waan). Smaller groups, often string quartets, have performed at 2 weddings, 1 funeral, 1 DN graduation, Christmas celebrations in HOP and Immanuel, 7 different kinds of parties/seminars and 9 private concerts at Immanuel Church for visiting groups to raise money and awareness for the music school.

On February 9th, 2015 singers from the Immanuel Music School got the opportunity to join the massed choir for Bangkok Opera Foundation’s performance of Mahler Symphony No. 2. One student from Immanuel Music School was allowed to join the high quality Siam Sinfonietta Youth Orchestra and many more of our students have had the opportunity to listen to their concerts throughout 2015. We also have enjoyed attending three of Bangkok Operas productions.

During 2015 Immanuel Music School also got free tickets and went to two of the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra subscription concerts. We also got invitations from the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra but sadly could not find time to go this year.

At the beginning of 2015 the Immanuel Junior Orchestra was established. The orchestra has been a great success and it performed at all three Music for Life concerts and also at many other small performances. Many of the kids joining from the start had never played in an orchestra before but they have grown both in confidence and ability during the year.

Both senior and junior orchestras have had 2 weekly rehearsals during the year with some kids joining both orchestras. On Friday’s there have been sectionals or string quartets rehearsals and on Saturday’s music theory classes. Individual lessons are given throughout the week at Immanuel Church. Music classes and violin lessons in Immanuel Day Nursery and Home of Praise have normally been given 1-2 days per week.

In April 2015 both orchestras went to rehearsal camps. The junior orchestra visited Pranburi and the senior orchestra went to Kanchanaburi. This is a great opportunity for the students to bond socially and also spend more time working on the music to higher levels in an environment they may not get to experience often.

Economy:

By the establishment of “Music for Life” the Immanuel Music School was expecting to receive a much higher income than before and therefore we raised our goals in what we can achieve for our students. Employing our first full time music teacher was necessary and it has been a huge success. It is unsure if the music school could have survived 2015 without this investment. From June we have regularly had a piano teacher coming to teach once a week which has also been very useful in furthering the skills of our students. We also encouraged some of our most talented students to apply for higher music education even if they didn’t have the necessary financial support from their families to pay the expensive fees. The music school has paid them small scholarships so they could stay in Immanuel Music School full time to get prepared for higher music education. One of them was ready to enter university in May 2015. Two others will start in 2016.

The “Music for Life” project founded and directed by Dag Johannessen developed well through the first half year of 2015. A steering committee was established, a Facebook campaign and lunch held and a Gala dinner and sponsor package planned. However, sadly Dag had to go on a sick leave so much of the planned work was left incomplete or postponed.

Despite this setback because we performed excellent concerts, made group visits and regular provided our supported with news on Immanuel Music School’s Facebook page new groups of people discovered the quality and importance of the work being done at Immanuel Music School. We received many new supporters and sponsors during 2015 and managed to cover all the following expenses in Immanuel Music School.

Music teacher’s salary: 285,675 Baht

Support to fulltime students in Immanuel Music School: 136,790 Baht

Fees for applying and to do auditions to university: 15,700 Baht

Scholarship University: 203,822 Baht

Camp: 61,079 Baht

Concerts: 110,967 Baht

Sheet music: 17,168 Baht

Repairing of instruments, included new bows: 23,730 Baht

Food: 32,770 Baht

Administration: 27,323 Baht

Fees: 9,735 Baht

Expenses regarding Music for Life Campaign: 5,600 Baht

Travelling expenses: 9,339 Baht

Rewards: 450 Baht

Total: 940,148 Baht

During 2015 Immanuel Lutheran Church has let Immanuel Music School use several rooms in the church for rehearsals almost every day for free. We really appreciate it. Thank you also for your patience regarding so many kids going in and out of the doors all the year but we hope the music school also provides you with a lot of joy!

Immanuel Music School has also received following donations of instruments:

5 violins, 1 small cello, one double bass, one electric guitar and one drum kit.

Thank you to everyone who has supported Immanuel Music School/Music for Life by giving of your valuable time, finances, instruments or supported in any other way. We could not have done it without you!