Access All Ages at The Bridgewater Hall

Manchester Libraries recently took part in a big event at The Bridgewater Hall. The event ‘Access All Ages’ was put on by Intergenerational Music Making (IMM) alongside Intergenerational England. As a partner who has worked with IMM multiple times in some of our libraries in North Manchester we were invited to have a stand in the ‘marketplace’ of the event and then later to join in with the show.

IMM work with many different partners to encourage the different generations to work together, for example schools taking part in workshops with care homes. Libraries are a perfect place for this as we welcome all ages to visit us and we run a variety of regular activities and events for families to take part in such as Fun Palaces and International Mother Language Day at North City Library. They ran a drumming workshop at the latter using songs from around the world and everybody thoroughly enjoyed being involved.

The event was fantastic and the tagline ‘where the audience becomes the star of the show’ wasn’t wrong! There was a variety of music performances around the building and on stage before the show officially started, followed by speeches and a little video (featuring snippets of Newton Heath Library!) about the importance of mixing generations. Emily Abbott (Programme Director) and Charlotte Miller (Founder and Director) talked about their recent report ‘A Divided Kingdom: Steps towards Intergenerational Solidarity’ and then, it was time to sing along! We had a little warm up and then dove straight into learning a song written especially for the day by IMM’s Programme Director Emily Abbott. With little breaks in between to sing well known pop songs, it wasn’t long before the audience knew the words to ‘The Song with No Name’ and could perform the whole song enthusiastically. At the end before the final performance there was an audience vote for the new name of the song and out of three choices the winner was a wildcard thrown in last minute by an audience member: ‘So Much More’.

The post box featured in our photos was created by the talented Blackley Craft and Crochet Group who meet twice a week at Avenue Library; it’s a real home from home and everyone enjoys a natter and a brew. The idea for the amazing post box came from a visit the group made to a wool shop in Rochdale where their knit and natter group had one on display. The topper is changed six times a year to represent the season and any special events such as World Book Day, and it has become a famous local art installation! The group created the topper and dangling musical instruments especially for The Bridgewater Hall event and they even made us our own Manchester Libraries banner which you can see on the front of our library stand!

To read ‘A Divided Kingdom: Steps towards Intergenerational Solidarity’, download here.

For more information about IMM, click here.