COMPOSER and musician Richard Gordon-Smith is about to unveil his biggest challenge. The task began in February: it was how to write a substantial piece of music, working with a group of up to 60 school children and developing and using their ideas. The result can be heard during the Hopes annual concert at the Philharmonic Hall on Monday. The children will perform the piece, named Kool Street alongside professional musicians from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Naturally the hall will be full of some very proud parents who will be hearing their sons and daughters perform in public for the first time. Kool Street takes its name from one of five short movements representing a day in the life of Liverpool city. The first is called Rocket and represents a journey on a steam locomotive. It's a piece which looks at the history of Liverpool and the first steam train. Richard says: "It gets faster and slower and that's a hard thing to do with young players." Parkland is about a walk in Sefton Park. This is a more peaceful interlude. Vandalism was mentioned as a possible subject. But "I've kept all the negative side of Liverpool out of it and nobody suggested I should put it back in." says Richard. "At the end, it's what the children wanted." The third movement, Kool Street is about the city centre and the life of a person walking through the street. Mersey Mystery is an interlude about the river at night, while the finale, Light up the City is a celebration of the variety of Liverpool life. Built into the piece are opportunities for improvisation. The project was funded by the National Foundation for Youth Music and part of the criteria was that the project should be socially inclusive. That meant finding a total mix of people and cultures. The development team drew their young orchestra from workshop projects held at Liverpool's Ullet Road Unitarian Church, from Merseyview Special School and from Shorefields Comprehensive. Working alongside Richard were fellow Liverpool Phil players Tony Bur-rage, Ken Johnson and Chris Morley with support from the Hopes project's Lydia Bates and Nicky Green plus Millennium volunteers. Over the course of months, the core number of students involved settled at around 40, playing a variety of wind instruments, percussion, piano and steel drums. Despite the musical influences which may have been drawn from the current pop scene, Richard describes the sound as "fairly middle of the road." He, of course, was responsible for organising it and writing it all down at the end of the day. He says: "I can't really claim it as a piece of my music. The children have hopefully learned a lot in developing the piece. At first, they can't put two notes together, but gradually the ideas crystal-lise and they get used to making music." The children are busy with late rehearsals this week before the big day on Monday, when their piece will share the stage with Beethoven and Eric Coates. Says Richard: "I'd like them to get a lot out of the performance too. Improvising is a quite an experience for youngsters. "I can tell that it's changed some of them. Children don't usually say 'you have changed my life'. It's not so much what they say, it's the light that comes on in their eyes." * Hotfoot 2002, the Hopes Annual Concert with the Hopes Festival Orchestra, 7.30pm Philharmonic Hall Monday July 15. | 
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