Oshifo youth group collecting their 'instruments'
Young people from the village of Oshifo in Omusati region, received some rather unusual visitors this October when John Cockerford, a London-based Music and Music Technology teacher, and two of his students from Newham Sixth Form College, Elliot and Nathanael, made the two-day journey from cold and wet London to Oshifo in order to show young people how to create a Junk Orchestra.
As John enthusiastically points out ‘the philosophy behind the concept of the junk orchestra is that everything (and by extension everybody) deserves a second chance’. The session started with the group collecting everything they needed – dustbins, car doors, bottles, seed pods from trees and much much more. In almost no time at all group members were able to thump away together and find their own “heartbeat pulse”. Soon an impressive performance piece emerged
Group members had to work and create music as a team, yet still maintain their individuality. This was, however, no problem the Oshifo youth group. As John maintains ‘the group had a fantastic attitude to hard work, and a sense of humour when things went wrong – one of the things I most enjoyed about working with them’.
Oshifo Youth group will be taking their junk orchestra on a regional tour to Erongo region over 15 to 22 March 2008.
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