UpBeat Project Blog
UpBeat was a year-long music project in Oxford that was hosted by Fusion Arts and delivered by Young Women’s Music Project. UpBeat was presented to young women in Oxford as a unique series of music masterclass sessions where participants could identify their needs in terms of music progression and received support through music leaders and mentors from Young Women’s Music Project (YWMP).
UpBeat was a year-long music project in Oxford that was hosted by Fusion Arts and delivered by Young Women’s Music Project.
UpBeat was presented to young women in Oxford as a unique series of music masterclass sessions where participants could identify their needs in terms of music progression and receive support through music leaders and mentors from Young Women’s Music Project (YWMP).
Participants on the project attended bimonthly sessions covering a range of activities from regular music making sessions, to event planning, mentoring, training and live performances. To validate these experiences and provide young people with something tangible to take away we incorporated Arts Award Silver and Gold into the project.
The Arts Award complimented the sessions and activities that YWMP had programmed which meant a lot of the experiences the young people were gaining through the project enabled them to generate a body of evidence for their Arts Award portfolios.
Delivering Arts Award through this project was at times quite challenging for staff and students alike. The young people had to balance the demand of A-level and GSCE course work set by their school, against the requests of Arts Award and UpBeat project which was free to attend. Naturally not all young people who started the project completed it, but this learning has shaped our thinking with regards to the best time of year to begin a project such as this. If we were to do this again we would look at starting the project after exam season, so young people could work on the project during the summer holidays with an aim to complete before the following Easter.
The project picked up a lot of momentum during the summer months as the young people had a lot more free time, and could take advantage of the opportunities offered in and around the project. Shown by examples in the number of festivals, gigs and live performances the participants got involved with. At the start of the project they participated in events as performers but by the end they became producers, engineers, stage managers and a whole lot more.
Music mentors brought an interesting dynamic to the project in that they could support the young people in exploring new opportunities for themselves and guide their learning independent of the project. The music mentors are industry professional musicians from around the country. The experience and skills they passed onto the young people enabled many of them to reach new heights in terms of developing themselves as musicians and seeking out their own opportunities. This is what we were aiming for. The UpBeat project is about music development and mentoring. It is also about empowering individuals to develop themselves. If we (the youth arts sector) want young people to be enriched by the arts and to develop as artists through cultural engagement then to a certain extent they have to go into the world and create opportunities for themselves and this is something that the core participants of the project did extremely well. We have a blog post on our Instagram, which showed examples of some of the participants creating their own opportunities independent of the project. https://www.instagram.com/p/BbrDKwdHzSc/?taken-by=ywmpoxford
The project concluded with an end of year showcase of YWMP’s achievements. The event that was planned and delivered by the young people.
We documented UpBeat project through a blog which you can visit by clicking on this link. https://UpBeat-masterclasses.tumblr.com/ The blog, illustrates the story of UpBeat from the perspective of young people and we hope the wider sector can learn from our experiences on delivering the project.
For further information about the UpBeat project, organisations and artists involved please visit www.fusion-arts.org or contact the team on info@fusion-arts.org
Author: Jordon Maynard Daley, External Project Evaluator & Arts Award Advisor for UpBeat, www.thearts-excite.org