By Derek Schlennstedt
PRIMARY school students across the country are busy practicing for the ‘Music: Count Us In’ initiative.
Created in 2006 by Music Australia, the Count Us In initiative is celebrating its 10th year and is Australia’s biggest schools program.
The program encourages young people to become passionate about music and music education and invites students from across the country to sing the same song, on the same day.
Last year over half a million students from over 2100 schools joined the program to be a part of a united ensemble.
One of the many schools taking part in the initiative will be Ferntree Gully’s very own, Saint John the Baptist Parish Primary School.
Having been involved in the initiative since its inception in 2006, the Saint John’s school choir even attended the Count Us In program of 2009 where 500 children from various schools joined in Federation Square to sing the ‘Music Is Everything’ song.
Saint John’s will take part in singing this year’s song ‘Let It Play’ together in the school hall after watching the live webchat stream from the Sydney Opera House.
All the students involved are extremely excited to be part of the Count Us In program and have been practicing fervently in preparation for celebration day on the 3 November says music teacher Lorraine Costa.
Each year students from all across the country are chosen to write next year’s song – this year’s song ‘Let it play’ was written by four student songwriters – Stella Kelly, Tom Meadows, Bonnie Staude and Breanna Truscott.
Working directly with schools and teachers, Music: Count Us In exists to assist teachers in providing quality music education and to address the gap in specialist music education provision in many Australian schools.
Students from all across Australia will be singing their hearts out in November and Saint John Baptist Parish Primary School students will be among them, but the students do say that the most important part is how music makes you feel.
“It’s not about your voice it’s about the melody; the melody helps you to believe that you are you, I am me, and together we are amazing,” said students from the school.
Although celebration day is just around the corner, schools can still lend their voices to the call for quality music education by registering for free at the Music Australia website.
