Parents and carers from the Tiny Tiddlers playgroup in Gallowhill write personal heartfelt songs for their children with musicians from Chamber Music Scotland.
Coorie Doon is a very special song writing project – where the creative team from Chamber Music Scotland (CMS) worked with families to write personal songs for their own children. Since beginning in 2015, Coorie Doon has involved families at North Edinburgh Arts Centre, Rachel House Children’s Hospice and the Neonatal Unit at Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Children.
The Coorie Doon project in Gallowhill began in early February – with the musicians joining the families at the Tiny Tiddlers pre-school group each Wednesday morning. Over the weeks, lyrics and music for the songs were written and developed by the mums, dads and aunties at the group alongside the CMS creative team of Kim Moore, Alice Allen, Katrina Lee and Una MacGlone.
The finished songs were due to be performed at a community event in Gallowhill in the last week of March. Unfortunately this had to be cancelled due to the COVID 19 lockdown. Instead, the four beautiful and tender songs made during the project are available to listen to online: https://soundcloud.com/chamber-music-scotland/sets/coorie-doon-paisley.
Interestingly one of the songs was given the title Yous Make Us Stronger, appropriate in the current climate that we are faced with.
Angela Gilmour, who runs the Tiny Tiddlers group and also took part in the project by writing and performing a song for her family, said: “I found it really hard to try put words to paper when we were sitting talking about our wee girls but the ladies from Chamber Music Scotland were amazing as they managed to choose words from us while talking about the kids and when they showed us what they came up with I couldn’t wait to start singing our song for our wee girls.
“It was very emotional hearing our song finished and I’ve started playing and singing it to the girls in the house.”
Coorie Doon is part of a wider Artists & Residents programme in Gallowhill – developing creative community projects with an underlying ethos of warmth, kindness and care coordinated by Kate Drummond, Visual Arts Producer at Renfrewshire Leisure. These Artist & Residents projects in Gallowhill will continue to develop over the next two years and is funded through Renfrewshire Council’s Future Paisley strategy, developed from the town’s 2021 City of Culture bid.
Renfrewshire Leisure’s chairperson, Councillor Lisa-Marie Hughes added: “Music and song is a wonderful way of communicating and touching people’s emotions. Creating a song for your children is something that will last forever and when they get older, the wee ones will be able to look back and know how much they were loved by their parents and carers.”
Future Paisley is the radical and wide-ranging programme of events, activity and investment using the town’s unique and internationally significant cultural story to transform its future.