Environment the Musical is an entertaining yet thought-provoking musical resource for everyone, especially children. It was written by Annette McNelis to educate and inspire people to care for the environment.
The Environment the Musical Educational Resource Pack is a DIY pack and provides everything schools need to make environmental education fun and easy in the classroom. It uses eight catchy songs and a fast-moving story line to provide lots of food for thought for both cast and audience.
The songs are easy to learn and teach and ideally suited to children’s voices. The Resource CD contains recordings of each song melody so a teacher does not have to be able to sing in order to teach the songs. With optional harmony tracks also available, the ETM Resource Pack is therefore suitable for both experts and non-experts. Everything you need is in the pack.
Phase 1 of ETM’s history
This resource could be called Phase 2 of Environment the Musical. Phase I was a collaboration between Donegal County Council Cultural Services and County Donegal VEC Music Education Partnership in 2007. This production featured an original script by Joe Brenan and six songs by Annette McNelis.
With support from the Donegal Education Centre in 2010, Annette followed this with the ‘Songs for the Classroom’ CD (a resource for teachers). This featured live and studio recordings of the songs by the original young cast.
Phase 2
This pack features a new script by Annette McNelis, re-arrangements and re-writes of the original six songs and two new compositions also written by Annette.
Annette began work on Phase 2 in early 2011. Over the next two years she worked with four schools and three groups of children. Three separate productions of the musical were produced using three very different casts.
Due to the positive feedback from teachers, children, parents and the general public, Annette decided to develop Environment the Musical as an educational resource.
Frank McGuinness, renowned playwright and poet, launched the resource in the Tullyarvan Mill, Buncrana, Co. Donegal, in April 2014.
Read more about how Annette came to create Environment the Musical in this blog post: https://annettemcnelis.ie/why-an-environmentally-themed-musical/
The ETM (Environment the Musical) Band
Solo performances: ‘Don’t Drop Your Litter”‘– Lorna McLaughlin, ‘Dog Pooh’ – Kate O’Callaghan and Siobhan Shiels, ‘The Bottle Bank Song’ – Chris Greene and ‘Sorry’ – Louise Crossan.
Teaching Resource CD: Introductions – Kate O’Callaghan, solo melody tracks – Louise Crossan and solo harmony tracks – Chris Greene.
Band: Bass guitar – Martin Smyth, Drums & percussion – Seamus Devenny, Acoustic guitar – Mark Devir and John McClennan (track 5 only), Piano – Annette McNelis and Saxophone – Shaun McCarron.
Songs and music recorded at Church Brae Recording Studio, Fahan, Co. Donegal, Ireland.
Sound engineering and mastering by Aidan McLaughlin.
Acknowledgement
This project is part-funded by Inishowen Development Partnership under the National Rural Development Programme 2007-2013 through LEADER.
