SoCo profiled on ENYAN Newsletter
12/01/10 23:57
SoCo have been featured on this months ENYAN (English National Youth Arts Network) Newsletter. Here’s the link: http://www.enyan.co.uk/article/show/8538. You may have to join the site to read it be we definitely recommend you join. The full article is below:
SoCo Music Project
www.socomusicproject.org.uk
We are a not-for-profit community music project based in Southampton on the sunny south coast of England. SoCo Music Project has been setup to provide fun and engaging music projects. We work with schools, community groups, youth clubs, individuals, in fact anyone who wants to make music… and you don’t even have to play an instrument to enjoy it!
Where did it begin?
Director Matt Salvage explains…
I’ve always had a passion for music but found at many stages of my life that barriers existed making it difficult to have rewarding experiences within music beyond just listening. Some years ago I took the plunge to train as a sound engineer and took my skills and experience into some tough London schools and was energised and inspired to see the results that making music had on young people, especially through using the latest technology to produce exciting and rewarding results.
I returned to Southampton eager to find an organisation to develop this exciting work but found nothing. Young people had limited access to relevant creative practise through music, whether in school or through youth clubs, but no coherent offer existed in the city to provide a visible solution for young people who had an interest, no matter how small, in exploring music. I knew this had to change and so, along with my long-standing musical compeer Jon Haughton, we worked on a plan that was to become SoCo Music Project.
Our aim was to create an organisation that would be visible and accessible, to provide engaging creative activities and opportunities for people of all ages across the city and beyond. We wanted to raise the cultural offer in the city while giving, primarily but not exclusively, young people the chance to make something, create something and be excited by it.
Our work
One facet of our work that we find most useful is our flexibility. We can spend an afternoon mentoring a young punk band only to find ourselves in the evening recording hip hop and grime. People come to us to find opera singers, folk performers or story tellers. Our project work has ranged from exploring sound with 5 year olds, to setting up gigs for teenagers, to making instruments out of vegetables! Everyday brings new challenges. We are currently building a radio station for a school to broadcast to 15 other schools in their cluster, we have recently won a Peoples Millions grant to develop a youth centre into an exciting music and film studio and we hope to open a shop unit providing open access music and media workshops to young people in Southampton. Our organisation relies solely on project funding but we’ve found no shortage of opportunities to set up and run projects and the response from the participants has always been positive and in many cases uplifting.
How we make it happen
Partnership working is so important to us, especially as an in demand small organisation with big ideas. From early on we realised the importance of effective networking and building good relationships throughout the city. Not only with other arts organisations but with council members, training providers, venues and individuals. We’re lucky in the city to have two Universities with very positive attitudes towards volunteering and a wealth of enthusiastic students keen to gain real world experience. We recently took part in a volunteer recruitment day at Solent University and signed up over 70 people eager to help us!
The Future Jobs Fund, run by the Department of Work and Pensions, has allowed us to take on two young people on 6 month contracts. Not only will it allow us to expand our offer but it will give these two people some great experience as well as an insight into how a small arts organisation operates. We’re excited about the scheme and we’re looking forward to giving these young people responsibility to develop parts of our organisation and take on a challenging role.
The future.
Southampton has some impressive ambitions in the area of arts and culture over the next 20 years. We see the work that we do now as having a direct impact on the city, both through positive activities for young people now, and by inspiring the next generation of arts leaders who will, we hope, help to realise these ambitions. We want to see the city develop it’s cultural offer by raising aspirations and by giving young people the chance to take part in positive, creative activities. By providing visible opportunities and acting as a beacon for people with an interest in music, film, radio and other cultural activities we want to put creativity at the heart of the community.
Matt Salvage, Director
SoCo Music Project
www.socomusicproject.org.uk
We are a not-for-profit community music project based in Southampton on the sunny south coast of England. SoCo Music Project has been setup to provide fun and engaging music projects. We work with schools, community groups, youth clubs, individuals, in fact anyone who wants to make music… and you don’t even have to play an instrument to enjoy it!
Where did it begin?
Director Matt Salvage explains…
I’ve always had a passion for music but found at many stages of my life that barriers existed making it difficult to have rewarding experiences within music beyond just listening. Some years ago I took the plunge to train as a sound engineer and took my skills and experience into some tough London schools and was energised and inspired to see the results that making music had on young people, especially through using the latest technology to produce exciting and rewarding results.
I returned to Southampton eager to find an organisation to develop this exciting work but found nothing. Young people had limited access to relevant creative practise through music, whether in school or through youth clubs, but no coherent offer existed in the city to provide a visible solution for young people who had an interest, no matter how small, in exploring music. I knew this had to change and so, along with my long-standing musical compeer Jon Haughton, we worked on a plan that was to become SoCo Music Project.
Our aim was to create an organisation that would be visible and accessible, to provide engaging creative activities and opportunities for people of all ages across the city and beyond. We wanted to raise the cultural offer in the city while giving, primarily but not exclusively, young people the chance to make something, create something and be excited by it.
Our work
One facet of our work that we find most useful is our flexibility. We can spend an afternoon mentoring a young punk band only to find ourselves in the evening recording hip hop and grime. People come to us to find opera singers, folk performers or story tellers. Our project work has ranged from exploring sound with 5 year olds, to setting up gigs for teenagers, to making instruments out of vegetables! Everyday brings new challenges. We are currently building a radio station for a school to broadcast to 15 other schools in their cluster, we have recently won a Peoples Millions grant to develop a youth centre into an exciting music and film studio and we hope to open a shop unit providing open access music and media workshops to young people in Southampton. Our organisation relies solely on project funding but we’ve found no shortage of opportunities to set up and run projects and the response from the participants has always been positive and in many cases uplifting.
How we make it happen
Partnership working is so important to us, especially as an in demand small organisation with big ideas. From early on we realised the importance of effective networking and building good relationships throughout the city. Not only with other arts organisations but with council members, training providers, venues and individuals. We’re lucky in the city to have two Universities with very positive attitudes towards volunteering and a wealth of enthusiastic students keen to gain real world experience. We recently took part in a volunteer recruitment day at Solent University and signed up over 70 people eager to help us!
The Future Jobs Fund, run by the Department of Work and Pensions, has allowed us to take on two young people on 6 month contracts. Not only will it allow us to expand our offer but it will give these two people some great experience as well as an insight into how a small arts organisation operates. We’re excited about the scheme and we’re looking forward to giving these young people responsibility to develop parts of our organisation and take on a challenging role.
The future.
Southampton has some impressive ambitions in the area of arts and culture over the next 20 years. We see the work that we do now as having a direct impact on the city, both through positive activities for young people now, and by inspiring the next generation of arts leaders who will, we hope, help to realise these ambitions. We want to see the city develop it’s cultural offer by raising aspirations and by giving young people the chance to take part in positive, creative activities. By providing visible opportunities and acting as a beacon for people with an interest in music, film, radio and other cultural activities we want to put creativity at the heart of the community.
Matt Salvage, Director