Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD) postgraduate viola player, Megan Jowett, has won the 25th annual Deutsche Bank Award for Creative Enterprise music prize of £10,000 for Make the Paint Dance, a project combining music and art to inspire children.
Inspired by the artist, Marc Chagall, and the music of Maurice Ravel, Make the Paint Dance began life as Megan Jowett’s Vocational Project module. After discussing it with Head of Ensemble Performance, Zoe Smith, she took it forward by talking to the College’s outreach and development departments.
Through a series of workshops in local Gabalfa Primary School, children were able to explore their creativity, developing the way they work to unlock new ways of learning. Working with composer, James Banner, they created a piece of music which they then narrated.
Megan Jowett will use the £10,000 prize money to set up the company, Make the Paint Dance, and run a year-long pilot, developing programmes to test out new ideas while monitoring the positive impact the project has on the children’s creativity. She also plans to secure more funding to continue the work within Welsh schools.
Zoe Smith said:
‘Hands-on workshops bringing music and art together are rarely offered to children so I was really happy to hear Megan would be developing her idea further. The idea that she has taken an academic requirement and turned it into a creative enterprise is really fantastic, reinforcing the strong employability strand that underpins our postgraduate programme.’
Megan Jowett said:
‘The outreach element of my project was inspired by the childhood poverty of Chagall and the need to bring creativity into schools to break down social barriers.’
Header photo: Music winner of the Deutsche Bank Awards for Creative Enterprise 2017, Megan Jowett © Amit Lennon
