Matrix Arts Centre is 30! A potted history - 2019
It's difficult to believe we opened our doors 30 years ago! We have had and will have more events to celebrate this significant birthday.
Highlights of 30 years at Matrix Arts Centre:
1984 Lindsay MacKenzie and George Taylor have a dream of an arts centre in our village!
1988 Yamaha Music School and Adventures in Music lessons are the first activities and start at one end of the building while the rest is completed.
1989 Building works finish and other activities start, including children’s art, aerobics, ballet, ballroom and music workshops; an inaugural concert is given by the celebrated Prussia Cove ensemble. The whole building opens with an open day on 9 October.
1992 Matrix becomes a registered charity.
1993 Our first few students gain places in the National Youth Orchestra, the National Children’s Orchestra, Chetham’s, and other music institutions. We continue to see such successes today.
1998 Music at Matrix: a concert series with accompanying workshops is created.
2001 A link with Oxford Brookes University is established; we participate in Oxfordshire’s Artweeks for the first time.
2003 The National Children’s Orchestra hold the first regional auditions at Matrix, now an annual event.
2008 Matrix holds the first Young Composers’ Concert in the UK, now an annual event for us.
2009 One of our Yamaha students represents the UK at the European Young Composers’ Concert held in Paris. Subsequent years have seen students performing their compositions in Hamburg, Venice and Vienna (you can hear some on our website).
2013 Anna Shackleton from Sutton Courtenay, who started her music education at Matrix when she was 3 years old, joins our teaching team giving voice/singing lessons. She studied voice at Birmingham Conservatoire.
2016 Matrix hosts the National Young Composers’ Concert in the Amey Theatre, Abingdon School.
2017 Music at Matrix concert series re-launched.
2017 Sarah Jenkins (Matrix Yamaha student 2003 – 16) wins the BBC Proms Young Composers Competition, this leads to two further BBC commissions, the last one being performed in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, December 2018 and broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
2018 With a grant from VWHDC and lots of fundraising, we move into our beautiful extension.
2019 Celebrations! Including an exhibition by local artist/architect Graeme Jones – do pop in and have a look - barn dance (6 July), teachers’ concert and cream teas (14 July), new children’s art course (Sept), big student concert in Oxford Town Hall (end Nov).