Orff-style project with one-teacher schools in NSW : an adventure in cultural understanding

In July 2007, eight one-teacher Northern NSW primary schools were involved in a project which the originating teacher called 'China in the Bush'. The account of the project comes from the perspective of the participant researcher as I was involved in the leading of the music making activities with the primary school children and worked with the teachers to devise ways of connecting the separate school communities into one ensemble for the performance. On another level, the paper explores the developing understanding of the teachers, their creative risk-taking and that of their students, the community involvement and the subsequent outcomes for the students. Set in the context of globalisation, this paper explores some opportunities for growing cultural understandings that develop in the context of musical and artistic learning.