Nicola Lisle talks to musicians bringing children to classical music’s delights

Pianist Mark Hooper smiles as he proudly tells me about his latest piece of critical acclaim.

“I was walking along Walton Street one day, and this mother went past with a kid on her back,” he says. “As they went past, the child yelled out: ‘Hello, Mr Mark!’ That was really lovely.”

This youthful exuberance was testament to the popularity of Mark’s monthly Cushion Concerts, which he established at Oxford’s Jacqueline du Pré Music Building and ran for many years before returning to his native Australia in 2012.

The concerts are aimed at youngsters aged around three to seven, and have proved a big hit with their fun, friendly approach to teaching classical music.

“There’s an intimacy in these concerts that children thrive on,” says Mark. “Everybody comes with a very positive attitude, and they get to know really interesting things about music.”

‘Mr Mark’, as the children called him, began putting on concerts for young children during his student days in Australia. Later, while studying at the Royal College of Music in London, he taught the grandchildren of violin legend Yehudi Menuhin, and ran concerts at the home of Menuhin‘s daughter for 14 years.

Moving to Oxford gave him the opportunity to carry on doing more of the same at the JDP, while simultaneously pursing a freelance performing career.

When he left Oxford three years ago, the series was taken over by cellist Roz Gladstone, in tandem with ‘Mr Cello’.

Roz, who also combines a teaching career with performing, trained at the DaCapo Music Foundation, a London-based Saturday school that teaches music to young children in a relaxed environment.

“The idea is to use repetition and things that the children are familiar with,” she says.

“Mark used a structure for Cushion Concerts that worked really well, which is ten minutes warm-up with the kids, and that’s where you do stuff they know.

“They love repetition, but you can also get amazing musical skills built up through that repetition, because you take a song they know, like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and you can vary the rhythm, vary the tempo, you can get them to clap it or you can get them to conduct it.

“You can do all sorts of things that are fun but that are also the basis of music making, as in listening and responding to each other.”

After the warm-up, the children are introduced to a musical instrument – a different one for each concert – played by a visiting musician.

Each concert is a maximum of 45 minutes. “It’s important to end on a high,” Mark says. “You’ve got to end before they start to get tired.”

The next concert, on September 20, focuses on the trombone. Further concerts through the autumn cover the guitar and the koto – a traditional Japanese stringed instrument – and finish with a festive folk concert in December.

Mark believes that the Cushion Concerts are unique. “There’s nothing else I know of that specifically works with five years and under with instruments. I think that’s one of the appeals, because we are offering something they don’t get anywhere else.”

Cushion Concerts Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, Oxford, Sep 20, Oct 4, Nov 22, 
st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/jdp-music-building/familyed