Our Sessions So Far, a time for reflection....
After 12 weeks of amazing music making, and another 12 to go, we take a look back at what has been achieved so far.
Afternoon MYN! As XLR is now 12 weeks in I wanted to give you all a bit of an update with what we’ve been up to, and what’s coming up over the next few months.
At this point, we have 21 students in our group, and a core of 10 young people who attend each session. The group have been developing confidence, group working skills and some of have been having one-to-one tuition with some of our amazing team.
Each week our team consists of myself (James Kennaby / Vice) and Phoebe Langton (aka Miss Twist), with a great team of volunteers -
Sophie Hosken-Taylor - Who has been working one-to-one with an amazing vocalist called Zoe to develop acoustic covers
Joss Murray- A really talented trumpeter and guitarist (part of Babyhead) who has been working with various groups to develop their skills and also recorded horn sections for a few tracks
Bim Williams (aka Mr Bim) - A long term volunteer for KWMC, who has been working on live sampling, scratch recordings and developing various electronic elements for tracks
Sam - Sam is the newest addition to our team. He’s developing his mentoring skills and personal confidence.
So far, the group have created 5 new, original songs, 3 covers and had one live performance during the young person's Christmas Party.
We had a masterclass with incredibly talented Eva Lazarus (Dub Mafia), who helped the group to create an original song with some amazing vocal harmonies and keys played by Liwanu.
Last week, dBS College (based next to Temple Meads Station, Bristol) dropped in to meet the group, and prep them ready for a free recording day they have offered the XLR students on 31st March.
The aim of the sessions is to help young people develop confidence in recording, production and performance. We have a wide range of events that the young people will be involved in, including -
Knowle West Fest Vybe Festival Saint Paul’s Carnival Wildfest Harbourfest
and more.
Their first external performance is on the 9th April at Colston Hall supporting Temple Records. The young people will be performing in the foyer alongside the Remix Sessions students (Colton Hall) and ACE Academy (High Road Studios).
You are all always welcome to come along to sessions, meet the young people and get involved.
We could always do with help in the form of logging the sessions through -
Audio recording
Filming
Photography
Student interviews
Please let me know if there’s anyway you would like to get involved in the sessions at any time.
We are ALWAYS looking for young musicians who would like to get involved in the sessions. The key age is 13 - 19, but we can be flexible either side if needed. They just need to have an interest in music, and preferably like producing music via music software, are a vocalist (sung, spoken word, mc / rapping) or play an instrument of some kind. If you know any young people you think maybe suitable please let me know.
Every fortnight i post session updates on here
(i will be posting another update next week)
We also have social media links, the main ones being -
https://www.facebook.com/xlrfest
Thanks to everyone who has been following our posts and i’ll be in touch with another update soon!
James XLR Programme Co-Ordinator
james@kwmc.org.uk 0117 903 0444