Confluence is a national project with a local focus. It offers participatory music projects, workshops, courses, concerts and events for people who live in the catchment area, from Somerset and Wiltshire, where the Stour rises, through Dorset to the sea at Christchurch. Whilst climate shifts around us, nature takes a beating from our insatiable demands and as the strands which bind community and culture are weakened by both pace and passiveness, it becomes ever more vital that we explore and express what our local world means to us. By making links between our use of water and the impact this has on the river catchment, its wild life and its culture, Confluence is trying to bring together the huge body of knowledge about the river which resides in the locality to compound and share in its richness. Music offers ways of giving form to feelings that are difficult to express, expressing abstractions and reality, of creating mood and identity.
Music can break through social barriers and can give people a voice.
Making music together can begin to engender feelings of local pride and cohesiveness. She is active in bringing people together to sing, write and perform, for example helping insecure singers to enjoy their own voices in Irresponsible Song workshops. Shades of Blue - an a capella jazz group of young women brought together by Helen after work in King Arthur's Community School, Wincanton. The Cutwater Band - a 'scratch' band which comes together from time to time to celebrate the bridges of the Stour. Many individuals have joined in composing and performing music inspired by the river or issues concerning water and are enthusiastically involving themselves with new Confluence activities as we continue to flow downstream.