‘Sound Stage’ music project launches at the British Music Experience

Posted: 26 January 2010

Metallica donate £75,000 to provide music-making opportunities for young people in London

In September 2008 global rock legends Metallica performed at The O2 and donated all of the proceeds towards creating music-making opportunities for young people in Greenwich. The project will be led by the British Music Experience and Youth Music, who have created a programme of activity to be delivered through the British Music Experience along with Greenwich Music Service and Greenwich Theatre. The programme is for fifty local young people to boost their skills, and improve their prospects and the opportunities open to them.

The programme launched on Wednesday 13 January, 2010 where the fifty Sound Stage students witnessed an exclusive performance by The Stow, a new London based band who recently supported VV Brown on tour and took away the star prize of a digital disc deal with Island Records. The students also heard from Youth Music’s CEO Christina Coker, as well as Chairman Richard Stilgoe.

The British Music Experience, Greenwich Music Service and Greenwich Theatre will run bespoke workshops for young people who face challenging circumstances in their lives. To help the young people progress both musically and personally, these workshops will include one-on-one and group activities from musical theatre production, composing, song writing, performing and concert production. The project will culminate with a final performance by all of the participants at the British Music Experience in August 2010.

Harvey Goldsmith CBE, British Music Experience Chairman, said: ‘The Sound Stage project is a fantastic creation for local young people. Metallica donated both their money and their time and invested in the future of British music with this initiative. It’s the first big project involving our fantastic education programme with even bigger campaigns to come, I’m proud the British Music Experience is a key partner leading the project. It’s exactly what we set the BME up to do; it’s part of our charitable remit to educate and there is no better venue.'

The project brings together the most successful elements from Youth Music Mentors and Voltage programmes, demonstrating how mentoring and volunteering can bring about positive personal change and raised aspirations for young people. Twelve identified participants from the three delivery partners have already received music leadership Code of Practice training from Youth Music's MusicLeader programme, as well as specific training in music mentoring.

As a complementary project strand, a group of Sound Stage participants will gain technical knowledge and tools by which to document, explore and reflect on their learning experiences through the production of participatory multimedia. The Sound Stage media component stands as an opportunity to pioneer an innovative model for multimedia learning which will include an online forum (including video diaries, blogs, photo stories and podcasts) to strengthen peer to peer support, mentoring and community linkages.

Michelle James, Youth Music Head of External Relations, said ‘We’re delighted that Metallica decided to endorse Youth Music and The O2’s charitable work in such a public way. The contribution from their fans will fulfil a genuine need amongst local young people to discover and access great quality music making in their local area. By donating their star status and financial support to Youth Music, Metallica are lending a huge hand in helping young musical enthusiasts reach their goals’

The major sponsors of the British Music Experience – Gibson, Sennheiser and PRS – are all major supporters of Sound Stage.

Please email Susanne.Buck@britishmusicexperience.com or Carly.Frey@youthmusic.org.uk for more information.

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