The French landed on our shores! It was to be the first of many visits between Paris and
Galway and the beginning of great friendships. The school of music Musique Ensemble XX was a perfect companion school being similar in numbers and abilities for us to begin
looking at exchanges.

This was also the first year that we began to take internal reviews of our own work. So we had a full school assessment of students to showcase the work happening but also, more seriously, so we could see that we were meeting our own standards across the board. We have continues this practise every year since.

We also got introduced to James Ross a wonderful young composer from Scotland who was commissioned to work with orchestral ensembles across the city and county. It was a very
cool project for the children to get to see a work develop from its genesis to a finished piece of music.