I had a great evening with Rory Dyer and Jamie his P.A the other night. Rory has been working on his songs since summer 07 with a view to bringing them to a future Musical Moves workshop , he and i have met up frequently to put our heads together and look at ways to get funding for the project. I never find that I need to inspire Rory , he has that in abundance as well as a great talent for song-writing and a drive to perform his songs. We had dinner at Rorys then went to a open mic night night at a venue he has been performing his songs for 4 years now, my job for the evening was to video his spot so he could have a reference for how the present songs are developing . He got a great response from the crowd who were friendly,i thought i would put up a clip of the one of the songs he did. He reminded me over dinner that Jim and i met him some 8 years ago when he was resident at the Orpheus Centre performing arts college, and i must say he has been a great inspiration to us ever since . When we had the original idea for getting Musical Moves off the ground , we always felt that he would be a recipient of future projects as well as a peer educator and indeed a member of the team.
So keep up the good work Rory
Paul Emile
January 08
I had the great pleasure of meeting up with Ulrike Weber, who with her husband run a youth house ,hostel , and rehearsal rooms for the young people in her local area of Austria. Jim and i had met her 3 years ago at a gig Ulrike was promoting as a founder of the Undisputed Peace Movement . At present she is looking for partners in europe to apply for European Cultural funding, to enable her to roll out projects in various countries during 08 -09. She was fascinating to talk to and had lots of ideas and hints for applying for E.C funding. Urike was interested in having Musical Moves over to run a workshop at the youth house as part of a 08 celebration they are having i the spring, so we agreed to stay in contact and she would keep us posted on her funding progress .
Paul Emile
February 08
I had a chance to catch up with Stephen Shiell(artist,sculpture) and Erica(film maker) on a very interesting project he invited me to participate in the half term week. The project was for young people who were local to Becton , and based at the Windsor Park Youth Club. During the week participants were encouraged to try film making, digital photography,willow sculpture,paper technology, creating displays and installations. Stephen brought me in to spend 3 days with the young people to make sound recordings , use music technology, and form a junk band with instruments they created during the workshop. The workshops aim is part of a initiative to consult with the young people and the wider community at the club, on ways of improving their local area. I had a fun time and the participants got fully involved in the process, and by the end of the week they had generated lots of material and recordings of their interviews. The junk band was very organic , the young people came up with their own rhythms and i managed to make a recording of a performance.
Good luck Stephen with the exhibition of the work from the project.
Paul Emile
February 08
As a follow on from our meeting in january Urike Weber(Undisputed Peace Movement) Austria, has asked us to send her a budget proposal and workshop outline for a project to work with young people with learning disabilities and special needs. Ulrike has asked us to come to Austria in August 08 to do the workshop, if she is successful in acquiring the funding. This would be our first Musical Moves workshop on foreign soil with the use of english as a second language.Which makes it a very exciting prospect indeed. it would be fantastic to have the opportunity to meet the young people as well as liaise with austrian musicians. Jim and i are due to meet up with Ulrike in april whilst on tour with Chris Jagger, we are looking forward to catching up with her .
Paul mile/Jim Mortimore
March 08
Jim and i meet up with Darren Snow( Crew Club) to discuss the possibilities for a half term workshop in April and technical support at their end of year showcase which is held at the Brighton Centre at the end of march. After catching up with Darren on what had been happening since we last worked at the club, and verifying availability we agreed to his budget plan. Darren asked us to submit a workshop plan which we did and i am very happy to say that it was agreed. Musical Moves 2 will be held at the club on 17- 19th april , and we will be on hand at the showcase to offer technical support for the young peoples performances on day.
Pics: from Musical Moves 1 August 07
Note : We are hoping to encourage the female members of the crew club to get involved this year!!!!!
Paul Emile/ Jim Mortimore
April 08
Well Congratulations to all the participants and staff of the Crew Club for completing a very successful 3 day workshop and performance.
Musical Moves 2 definitely followed on from the success of the first workshop, due to the increased participation from the young people in numbers, effort and talent. M.M tutors were very moved by the way the group developed over the 3 days, and how we all pulled together in the writing and rehearsal stages of the project to make for a truly memorable finale gig. Some of the songs that were written ensemble by the wider group as well as individuals and teams were truly outstanding in lyrical content and melody, which all made us listen and understand to what people wanted to say in a moment, in the story, in the song. A definite highlight for us was the way the participants by the final gig wanted to take responsibility for their work and introduce the songs to the friends and family who attended the final gig. The turnout for the young people performing was great, so they all finished with a sense of entertaining a big audience some for the first time
Big thanks goes out to Darren and lorraine for inviting us back to the Crew Club,and for looking after us so well, and to Luke(peer educator) for his support and patience, talent and enthusiasm(good luck with your musical career)I.E (great song and video!!!!)
Below is the DvD of the final gig, given to all the young people .
Due to technical problems the audio recording was low in quality(apologies Darren)
Michael Bowes(Drum Tutor) could not be with the team on this occasion, but thanks goes out to Tom Arnold for stepping in and being such a great addition and all round talented musician.
Paul Emile/Jim Mortimore
May 08
Jim and i caught up with Urike Weber of the (undisputed peace movement) in Reigan, Austria, still no word on the funding for the workshop she wants to do with musical moves in summer 08. Urike explained that it is a slow process but she will be working on the project plan in the meantime.
We had a good time at the club and when we finished our set Ulrike did a spot with one of the bands on her label the Loop Doctors.
Paul Emile
June 08
Musical Moves have been invited by Pastor Philip from the Redeemed Christian Church of God, to submit a proposal for a workshop to be delivered as part of there young members activity week in august 08 . Paster Philip felt that Musical Moves would be a welcome addition to this years activities,he suggested a taster session by way of introduction to what we do, aims and objectives. he explained that the young members organize there own activities during the program and he would pass on the proposal and budget plan for consideration.
Paul Emile
June 08
Jim and i had a very positive evaluation meeting at the Crew Club with Darren( manager) and the new music worker at the club Kevin. Darren explained that all the participants, parents, and end of workshop gig audience all fed back positively how they felt the workshop had been successful . He felt Musical Moves 2 had built on the success of the previous workshop, and he was particularly pleased with the standard of songs and the performance by the young people at the gig. Now Kevin was in post and music courses at the club could now be accredited, so the young people who participate would be able to gain a qualification. Darren felt that we could now expand the musical moves experience, incorporating a longer workshop time i.e. 5 days, with more activities i.e dance/drama, with more emphasis on ethnic influences within the music and performance. This started us thinking about incorporating more percussion into the workshops, which could feed into the dance aspect of rehearsal/production/ and performance. The idea would be to do the final performance at the Crew Clubs AGM at the brighton centre in march 09.
Musical Moves 3 09 would be a jointly funded project with MM providing at least 80% of the budget. We all got very excited about the possibilities and the new aspects of what we could offer the participants, to infuse and excite the creative process. Jim and i agreed to get to work researching possible new funding opportunities, one of which is the Paul Hamlyn Fund.
Watch this space for future updates!!!!!!
Paul Emile/Jim Mortimore
June/July 08
In a recent email from Urike Weber (Undisputed Peace Movement)Austria, she explained that due to lack of funding we would not be able to go ahead with the proposed joint project in Austria this year.
She wrote:
I'm very sorry that I must tell you that we still haven't found any funding
for your/ our project with musical moves, which we very like and think
that this is a really blessed undertaking.
I also tried to interest big companies, but they always answer that they have
developed their own(!) social networking and event- programs also for
the disabled people.
This is very often the argument.
So we will look for another solution and try to probably do the workshop another date.
I hope that you're not so sad like I am, cause I'd like you so much coming over here
and work with our people from the house for the youth.
But at the moment we have no other possibilities.
You know, that you're always welcome to visit us at any time, as I pointed it out in the letter
I sent Jim with his slide ring.
Maybe another time we'll get back to that project.
Jim and i wrote back and thanked Urike for all her efforts, and explained that we will continue to do everything we can from our end to get the project off the ground.
Update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ulrike contacted us at Musical Moves with the news that she would like to invite us to visit her and her husband Fritz in Austria this year. Urike would like us to meet with social workers based at the house for the youth www.hausderjugend.at. in Mödling (that's in the South of Vienna)
The idea would be to have a meeting about future projects and “Sustainable
Joint Working” in the engaging of the local young people with complex and special needs. Costs,flights, and accommodation would be provided.
Jim and i would love to take up the offer and hope to go over in November 08.
We would like to thank Urike for all her support and encouragement, and we look forward to representing Musical Moves in our first pan european exchange.
Paul Emile/Jim Mortimore
July/August
It was great to touch base with Stephen Shiell(artist sculpture) at the follow up to February /july consultation activities week at the Windsor park community centre(Becton, East London). Jim and i were asked to come in and work with the young people on songs/tracks, the young people got into the process while making structures,tee-shirts,masks, with some of the other artists as a way of them testing out what they wanted to do. Building o the uptake and success of the day Stephen and Erica (film maker )asked us to visit the youth club to gauge interest in whether the young people would participate in a Music production/Video project . The members of the club showed allot of interest and we delivered a taster session the next day and recorded 3 original pieces of music.
We were then asked to submit a proposal to the coordinators of the project Freeform Arts Trust, which was excepted so we will be delivering 4 Music Workshops in September at the youth club. So hopefully with allot of input from the young people by the end of the month Erica will have the mastered tracks to start shooting the video in the local area.
Paul Emile/Jim Mortimore
For the 2nd year we were invited to participate in activities for young people at the Normand Park Fun day in Fulham in cooperation with the friends of Normand park and Fulham NDC. This year they were celebrating the relaunch of the park, which had been redeveloped with lots of new areas and facilities. I facilitated a drum workshop on the day which was well attended, it was nice to see more young people and toddlers with their parents participating and having fun. Big thanks to lila lifely for booking us.
Paul Emile
September
Musical Moves would like to thank the management and staff of
SAFE STORE in Camden for kindly donating 1 year of storage space for our equipment and musical instruments. They have a policy of supporting the local charities in the area, and we are delighted to be recipients of this facility and commitment.
Paul Emile/Jim Mortimore
October
Natasha and i are pleased to announce the birth of our daughter Esmee Emile Silsby, born on 10th October weighing 7.4 pounds.
November
I went over to Modling/Austria to visit Urike & Fritz Weber at there invitation, to see the youth house provision Fritz manages, to meet the young people and talk to the youth workers about a possible partnership project. They were great hosts and i very much enjoyed my stay. I was not prepared for what i was about to see, i was truly overwhelmed by the experience .
“Please check out special report on my visit”
Paul Emile
December
Wishing you all a very merry christmas and a happy new year!!!!!!!!!!!
From Musical Moves
PS.
All we want for christmas is funds to put on as many quality projects for young people as possible in 09 and beyond.
PSS.
Wishing Jim Mortimore (M.M Co-Director) and associates all the very best in there endeavors in January 09. Jim will be a member of a party going out to Rwanda for a month , he will be donating his skills and know how to build a recording studio as well as record some of the young musicians there.
Good Luck
Paul Emile
