About Stringwise
Stringwise, founded in the 1980s by Sheila M Nelson, offers non-auditioned holiday courses for young string players aged 6 – 14 years. It is a fundamental part of our philosophy to accept all comers, without audition, from open strings to grade 8. Pupils can expect 4 days of musical fun, including chamber ensembles, singing, orchestra, musical skills, games and instrument technique.
Courses are non-residential and run over 4 days in the Easter and Summer holidays, from 9:15am to 3:15pm, usually at Hornsey School for Girls in North London.
We usually have 60–80 children attending, arranged by age and experience into four strands: Red, Purple, Blue and Gold. Courses are generously staffed; typically, there are two tutors and at least one student helper in each strand with one member of staff dedicated to supervising break times.
Our upcoming course dates for this year are:
Summer: 29th July - 1st August 2024
The cost of each course is £250 per child (£20 discount for sibling). Please contact us if you will need a bursary or financial assistance to attend.
HISTORY
Stringwise was founded in the 1980s by Sheila Nelson with a group of string teachers who had worked together on the Tower Hamlets Project, which pioneered group string teaching in primary Schools and had a large teacher training component built into its structure.
The project ran under the auspices of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) and thus began running holiday courses for children in tandem with the ILEA’s London Schools String Ensemble. When ILEA was abolished in 1990, and with it the project, a great deal of expertise was in danger of being lost. Stringwise was formed with the dual aims of running both holiday courses for children and training courses for string teachers.
Whilst we have provided courses in the past, our priority for growth and development is now via in-house training. Through on-going training and mentoring, trainees are given guidance during the courses whilst assisting in strands.
The teachers’ courses were very successful for a number of years but are now overlapped by those run by the European String Teachers Association, in which many of the Stringwise teachers participate. Feeling that this ground is now adequately covered, we are not currently running our own teachers’ courses.
