Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Bring Music and Wellbeing Session to Community Pop-up Scheme
On Tuesday 26th March, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra led a free music and wellbeing session at the AECC UC Health and Support Pop Up Event. This was one of many free health and wellbeing sessions that took place at the event, which included NHS health checks, a community support hub, blood pressure checks, foot checks and diagnostic ultrasound checks.
The session was led by BSO Associate and freelance musician, Sam Mason, who was joined by BSO Young Associate Ed Lee. The session included creative music making and singing using a range of percussion and drums brought along by the BSO. There was a range of jamming and one of the attendees improvised a story about a local fish and chip shop, whilst the rest of the group created music around it. At the end of the session, one of the attendees led an impromptu chorus of ABBA’s ‘thank you for the music’ to thank Sam and Ed for the session. Another attendee, who enjoyed the session said “music is my life. I find other areas of life difficult, but music makes me really happy. I listen to music all day long.”
Sue Sharpe, BSO Participate Senior Programme Manager (Health & Wellbeing) said “We are delighted to make connections in the Boscombe area and to make music and sing with the people who came along to the AECC University College event. Creative groups can help build supportive relationships within communities and participation can benefit mental health, wellbeing and self-esteem, both for service users and professionals.”
Daniel Heritage, Chiropractic Clinic Lead at AECC University College, commented: “We were thrilled to welcome the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra team to our local community two-week initiative. This session fitted perfectly with our event’s ethos of giving the community access to free health and support advice all under one roof. Wellbeing is a big part of that, and we are delighted that the BSO was able to support this event with their free music and wellbeing session.”
Daniel added “The event has been a great success. The goal behind the event was to bring health checks, sessions and support to the community in an easily accessible venue in the centre of Boscombe. We certainly achieved that. We have welcomed 100s of members of the local community to the event, who accessed free ultrasound checks, NHS checks, foot checks, spoke with the support organisations at their stands and joined in with sessions across the two weeks. I would like to extend a big thank you to everyone involved in the event as well as everyone who came along.”
