5 Places is the core of Red Note’s performing and outreach programme. Targeting five locations across central Scotland, we aim to properly get to know people in their own neighbourhood at grassroots level, and work with them to bring live music to the heart of their community over three years. The exciting (and scary!) part of the project is that we don’t know what shape the project will take until we meet people in the community and find out what’s going to work for them; so the project may well look completely different in one place compared to another.

At the end of each 3-year 5 Places project we undertake a series of culminatory events that will see performances and workshops celebrating and giving a public platform to all of the work produced, created and undertaken within that 3-year project.

EASTERHOUSE

Our work began in 2017 in Easterhouse, starting with our partnership based at Oakwood Primary School. Here we’ve met and worked with every class in the school, and in addition to performing for them, have worked with them to create their very own Oakwood Songbook (for more on this, see the Songbook project page). We’ve also met Aultmore Park Primary School, Newhills Secondary School, the Daffodil Club, worked with Lochend Community High School, and performed at Shadwick Square shopping centre. We aim to reach out further into the community, working with older community members, people with English as a second/additional language, Cranhill Veterans, nursery age children and their parents/carers and more.

We’re thrilled to have received Creative Scotland’s Youth Arts Access funding which allowed us to continue our work there beyond the 3-year programme. Our current work with Easterhouse is led by composer Brian Irvine with support in 2021-2022 from creative musician and Weston Jerwood Creative Bursary Fellow Martina Corsini. This ongoing collaboration with Easterhouse communities is called “An Easterhouse Children’s Manifesto” and is based on the ideas and voices of Oakwood Primary School’s pupils and their partnered groups from the wider community. For more information on this project, go to our An Easterhouse Children’s Manifesto page.

METHIL

In the meantime, in 2019 we began to work in our second ‘Place’, the town of Methil (Fife). In our first years we have worked with Kirkland High School and now Levenmouth Academy, as well as performing for the Connect Club. Despite the pandemic, composer Gareth Williams was able to keep the relationship alive by connecting with different groups over Zoom and through telephone conference calls.

After coming out of the pandemic we hit the ground running for future collaborations with communities. Composer Oli Searle led workshops in Methilhill Primary School and Levenmouth Academy for our New Music Makers sessions throughout 2022 which culminated in a sharing at Levenmouth Academy in February 2023.

We’ve also developed new relationships with communities including Methil Community Garden and began a new collaboration with Starcatchers, Scotland’s Arts and Early Years organisation, working with babies and young children aged 0-5, and the children, families, and staff at Methil’s Woodlands Family Nurture Centre.

We are currently working to develop a community choir in the area, an ongoing project that, like the others, will surely continue to grow in 2024! 

FERGUSLIE PARK

Ferguslie park is our newest collaboration in our 5 Places programme. We have only started to get to know the community in Ferguslie Park, Paisley.

In 2019 and 2021, we performed for Glencoats Primary School, for a varied audience in the Tannahill Centre, at the Love St Resource Centre and Beechwood Community Centre.

We’re really looking forward to getting more involved in the local community and finding out how we can collaborate with them!