by Author simonsteptoe

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Northamptonshire Young Music Leaders Day

On 2nd April, as part of Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts's new Fund B project, "Industrious", we ran the first in a series of 4 training days this year for young emerging musicians in Northamptonshire. The session was led by musician and animateur, Paul Griffiths, and focussed on two main areas:

  • the acquisition of practical music leadership skills
  • career development

Whilst we've run similar sessions in the past for members of our existing Musical Inclusion Team, due to the (albeit not-so-recent) extension of the upper age range for participation on Youth Music projects from 18 to 25 years of age, this is the first time we have specifically targetted this age group and worked with a group of young musicians who are either just embarking on a career as a musician - e.g. plying their trade across the local music scene - or perhaps looking to progress their existing careers in new directions by learning new skills or extending/developing new networks.  

For us, this cohort in particular represents an interesting intersection between developing youth voice across the organisation, strengthening the skills of the local workforce, and the current process of evolving our new Musical Inclusion Strategy. 

One of the questions we posed was what are the ways the Hub could support these musicians in the future. Responses included: 

  • increased publicity about the work of NMPAT and the Hub, so more people - especially local musicians - know about the full range of its work 
  • better access to studio space
  • help to support young musicians develop their professional networks, and...
  • following on from this, some sort of online portal to promote their performances, whether these be open mic nights or bigger professionally organised gigs.

We will be organising a follow-up day (or perhaps two consecutive days) in the Summer Term, to reconvene the group and hopefully follow up on some of these things. One of the things already discussed was how members of this existing group can skill-share and support each other. 

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More information about Paul and his work can be found here: http://music.britishcouncil.org/resources/education-organisations/individuals/paul-griffiths