Thanks so much for your interest in this competition, we hope you’re excited to get going! You might have lots of ideas already, but here’s a wee message from Claire for some inspiration:

I’d love you to write a poem, thinking of your words as lyrics to a song. Your lyrics can be about anything you want, let your imagination run wild and your feelings guide you. It could be silly or serious, happy or sad, funny, reflective…it’s up to you. It might be about something or someone you know, something you saw, your favourite place, or be based on a theme like animals or the weather or a day trip. Or, and sometimes these ones really capture other people’s imaginations too, it could be something completely different – just made up!  To give you an idea, some of the favourites (of the ones I’ve written) are, “There’s a dinosaur in my garden” and “If I was King then I would say let’s all eat ice-cream every day”!  

Rhyming works really well in songs, but you don’t have to make it rhyme if you don’t want to. Try to keep your work to about 3 verses. If you want to have something like a chorus that can be repeated after / between verses, then you could do that too. Please give your poem a title and draw a picture to go with it (the words can be within your artwork, or typed separately) as I’d love to print the winner’s artwork on the front cover of the score and present a copy to them. I can’t wait to see what you come up with – good luck and have fun!” 

You may have seen Owen chatting a bit about this project on Facebook or Twitter – he’s really looking forward to being one of the judges along with Claire. They’ll also be joined by Andrew Nunn (pictured below), Director of Choirs at RCS Juniors and Artistic Director of the National Youth Choir of Northern Ireland.

You’ve got until 5pm on Friday 1st May to share a photo of your poem alongside the piece of artwork on Facebook (as a comment on the competition post) and send a typed version of your poem (please remember to give it a title and include your name and age) with artwork attached in an email to ccc@childrensclassicconcerts.co.uk  

For the overall winner, the prize is: 

• their poem being turned into lyrics for a brand-new song written by Claire
• a copy of the score (with their name included as the lyricist, as well as their drawing printed on the front cover).
• the opportunity to hear their song performed live by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Pre-juniors choir, as a VIP guest
• a family ticket to CCC’s Ghost Ship concert with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, plus a backstage pass and the chance to meet Claire.

There will also be 2 runners up who will receive family tickets (2 adults and up to 3 children) to our Ghost Ship concert (in either Glasgow or Edinburgh), including backstage access.

Claire really wants to help families out during this lockdown and so she’ll be volunteering her time to do this, which is extremely generous. We’re so grateful to her for creating this amazing opportunity, and are looking forward to reading your poems, hearing the end result (and more of Claire’s new music at our Ghost Ship concerts)!

Team CCC ?