About Us
The Brussels-Ukkel Late Starters Ensemble (brUlse) is an amateur ensemble for beginning or recently returning adult musicians and active players.
The aim is to play together and have fun in a genuinely supportive and non-competitive environment.
For whom?
Adult late starters, regardless of age, background, experience or income.
Early starters are welcome but having notions of music reading is preferable as we do not offer music theory nor technique classes at this point.
Open to all instruments but more adapted to string, woodwind and small percussion instruments.
History
Our inspiration is the East London Late Starters Orchestra (ELLSO).*
Its founding members were inspired by a Tower Hamlets council initiative to encourage children to play stringed instruments. The council invited parents to drop in for a one-hour sample lesson. A group of parents then went on to set up ELLSO and over 35 years later, hundreds of adults have felt the same thrill at handling these wonderful stringed instruments, many of them for the first time in their lives. For most it comes as a revelation that they, too, can learn to play, that it's never too late and there is nothing, apart from their own inhibitions, to prevent them. Their innovative and successful model has served as the springboard for establishing other late starter string orchestras namely the Yorkshire Late starters Strings (YLSS) and the New York Late starters String Orchestra (NYLSO).
BRULSE, like ELLSO and the others, wants to break down barriers to music-making. It wishes to democratize the ensemble experience and bring the joy of playing to a broader segment of the music loving community.