Camille Villanove: Listening workshops for senior citizens
Organisations
Camille Villanove, musicologue–médiatrice de la musique
Camille Villanove is a freelance musicologist and music educator based in Paris who collaborates with a wide range of organisations to help musicians and culture professionals design education activities. She also produces web series and presents concerts exploring classical repertoire.
Project
Listening workshops are offered in partnership with the non-profit organisation Venez et voyez. Each workshop explores a ten-minute piece from the classical repertoire, which is listened to fully twice, once at the beginning and once at the end of the workshop. Between the two listening sessions, participants exchange their perception and feelings around the piece. A slide show on the context and structure of the work with extracts from the score is provided.
Participants
8 to 25 adults, the majority of whom were senior citizens and had little prior knowledge of classical music but an interest in literature and the fine arts.
Project outcomes
Working online enabled Camille to reach an audience of participants that went beyond the Paris area.
The workshops provided an opportunity for social interaction for people suffering from isolation during the pandemic.
The fact that participants were in their own homes contributed to a relaxed, spontaneous atmosphere.
Context
Since 2016, Camille Villanove has collaborated with Venez et voyez to offer listening workshops aimed at senior citizens. In 2020 and 2021, the organisation’s activities were offered online due to the pandemic.
Approach
The aim of the workshops is to help participants broaden their perspective, refine their listening skills and share their feelings and emotions around a given piece of music. They also aim to improve participants’ knowledge of the repertoire, composers’ biographies and how to identify musical genres and to recognise instruments and vocal types.
In order to engage with senior citizens who were less familiar with technology, Camille provided fact sheets ahead of time as well as personal support during the session if required. In order to drive engagement during the sessions, Camille clearly laid out the structure and aims at the beginning of the workshop, regularly called on the participants with targeted questions, and alternated listening sessions based on visual cues and those without. Recordings of the sessions were made available for a month after the workshop.
Results
The online format not only enabled the workshops to be maintained throughout Covid-19 restrictions, but also enabled the organisers to reach participants who were unable to attend events in person, who had professional obligations or who lived beyond the immediate Paris area.
Feedback from participants was globally positive. Venez et Voyez continues to offer listening workshops both as an in-person and online format.
Lessons learned:
Stick to a schedule: Avoid exceeding the time limit because participants get tired, scattered or bored more easily than in an in-person setting. Pay attention to the rhythm of the workshop and aim for short, varied sessions rather than long ones that focus exclusively on one topic.
Provide participants with a written guide to working with software used during the session. Camille also advises workshop leaders to designate a “tech reference person” among the participants who can help others who are struggling.