Yesterday the children played alongside children from The British School at the celebrations for the Queen’s Birthday put on by the British Consulate-general in Rio de Janeiro. They absolutely loved the experience of being whisked off in an air-conditioned bus to the prestigious Clube dos Caiçaras and performing alongside and getting to know the children from the British School (the night ended with them singing together on the bus back). Despite the pressure, the children held their nerve and played and sang beautifully:

Being invited to play the national anthem at the Queen’s Birthday has given the project a huge boost in terms of the children’s motivation to practice, in terms of publicizing our project and in terms of giving us a concrete musical challenge to really get our teeth into over the last few weeks. So thank you ever so much to the British Consulate-general for the invite, to the British Ambassador, Alex Ellis, and to the British Consul, Jonathan Dunn, for his very kind words about the project in his speech. A big thank you also to Naira De Almeida Prado and Caroline Luymar for coming to our community and making the link with our project, and to Ana Beatriz Moller for looking after us on the day.

As they say in Brazil “Deu tudo certo” (it all worked out great).