StAMP – St Andrews Music Participation – is a music education project created in 2020 to invigorate the cultural heritage of brass playing in Fife – across schools and in the community. The project is a partnership between The Wallace Collection, University of St Andrews Laidlaw Music Centre, Fife Music Service and Fife Brass Bands.

Fife has a long and established tradition of brass bands. There were over 130 during the industrial heyday of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Though most of  the mining and heavy industry has gone, the music plays on through eight surviving Fife bands.

Aims

The aims of StAMP are:

  • to raise aspiration, attainment and improve health and wellbeing by providing opportunities for children to participate in joyful music making
  • to build strong, sustainable and supportive partnerships with schools and community groups across Fife that can nurture future music makers
  • to refresh and reinvigorate brass bands across Fife
  • to develop innovative methods of delivery and resources for supporting brass performance
  • to provide inspirational performance opportunities to young brass players across Fife
  • to research and disseminate the project’s impacts both socially and artistically, as well as create opportunities for others to learn about delivering community music projects

StAMP Brass Camp 2020

StAMP hosted its first online brass camp in July 2020.  Participants from all over the world came together in an immersive online learning environment and learnt from an outstanding team of tutors and special guests.

Around 80 enthusiastic new learners in the local area were supplied with Brass for Beginners® Natural Trumpets and, after participation in the online beginner classes, joined in the Grand Finale concert on 29th July.  These young players have continued to receive weekly online lessons and are going from strength to strength.

Find out more and meet the tutors.

StAMP Fringe Festival 2020

The StAMP Brass Camp generated a ‘halo’ of music-making activities, gathered together in an online StAMP Fringe Festival which was made available to the general public.  The series of online events provided performances, films and presentations from internationally renowned figures in the world of brass, including trombonist Ian Bousfield; a screening of the documentary The Celebrated Cyfarthfa Band’; Arnold Myers: How Brass Instruments Work; a screening of We Choose To Go To The Moon; and the StAMP Brass Camp Grand Finale Concert.

Find out more and view the events.

StAMP is set for an adventurous future replete with exciting opportunities, and the forthcoming programme of events, interactions, collaborations and participation will continue to be announced on this website and the following media platforms:

The Wallace Collection:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thewallaceworld
YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/ThewallacecollectionWorldonline
Twitter: www.twitter.com/thewallaceworld

StAMP:
Website: stamp.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/StAMPMusicEducation