I’m Haresh, a Year 11 student at Wilson’s School, and Sutton Music Trust took me onboard as part of a short placement, packed full of tasks ranging from concert resource organisation to helping in the classroom. Suffice to say, I had never truly understood the sheer level of work around the clock that goes into making such an organisation tick.

In amongst its quiet and rather peaceful office space, the SMT team quickly made me feel comfortable with Maddie giving me my initial briefing, as well as a few administrative activities. A proofreading task organised by Jacob helped to develop my attention to detail skills, which, in all honesty, have not always been my strong suit! Spotting mistakes in a long piece of text seems to get trickier as you go, with typos seeming to blend in with sentences when you try to read them normally, but this was resolved with practice.

A similar task filled part of my second day, alongside a short visit to local primary school Rushy Meadow, where I helped Andy with Ukulele lessons in Year 3, and gave a small flute performance myself. As somewhat of a musician, who plays piano, flute and guitar, seeing people find new enjoyment in creating and performing music is always a lovely thing to see. While it may not be for everyone, which the varying levels of energy in the classroom showed, even just trying something out can be a valuable experience.

On both Thursday and Friday, I helped at evening concerts, especially with admission and donation collection. Outside of my duties, I was able to witness some excellent performances on both nights. The vocal ensembles of Thursday evening were fantastic, with the vocal harmonies and general energy across the groups being amazing to witness. Friday saw yet more great performances, with the Sutton Youth Symphony Orchestra (SYSO) being a particular highlight for me, due to a particular personal inclination towards their repertoire and an interest in potentially joining them one day.

Reflecting on the week, the level of variety it has presented has been my favourite aspect of the placement. An integration of musically interesting activities into useful office-based work has led me to enjoy the experience as much as I have. That, then, draws me to wholeheartedly recommend a placement at SMT to anyone who has an interest in music, however big or small, and I would like to again give my thanks to the wonderful team for hosting me!