News

Investing in people and projects across London

We have been busy shortlisting applications across four different Sound Connections programmes and are excited to announce the results! The projects represent a wide range of London boroughs, themes and approaches:

Wired4Music Generate – project funding and mentoring for people age 16-25
The first cohort of Generators for 2019 are:
Sahra-Isha with ‘Sai Noir’ – a music magazine showcasing young creatives in the music industry
Tyrell with ‘Southside’- an audio-visual project highlighting gentrification in South London
Redz Man with ‘The Name RJ’- an audiovisual project based on a concept mixtape
Rana with ‘Fashion EP ’-  a debut EP being launched via fashion
Lil Trubz with ‘Tracks on Tap’ – an open mic and performance night based in Streatham Space for 16-25s

There will a second round of Generate opening later in 2019 – sign up to Wired4Music for updates.

Music Education Hub (MEH) Inclusion and Diversity Fund – fund for MEHs to embed inclusive practice
This is a brand new programme for 2019, and involves more then a third of London’s Music Education Hub lead organisations:

Tri-borough Music Hub will support their youth forum to plan and deliver an event
THAMES and Newham Music will run a cross-borough youth consultation
Redbridge and Southwark Hubs will grow a network for Hub-based Early Years leads
The South West London Hub consortium will work collectively through a series of away days to create an inclusion and diversity framework for 7 boroughs

Impact – bursaries and mentoring supporting people to develop skills and capacity for evaluation, impact measurement, fundraising, consultation and needs analysis
Impact Bursary recipients are a mix of individual practitioners and grassroots organisations:

Music charities School Ground Sounds and BIRD
Carnival band Pumpkin Jigsaw
Early Years practitioners Julia MacDonell and Charmaine Simon
Croydon-based community musician Catherine Pestano 

Innovate – seed funding and mentoring for innovative music projects

All of this year’s Innovate projects have a focus on youth leadership:
Road works – a research project focused on London drill and rap music in South London, led by Ciaran Thapar
Boys 4 Voice – building a community of boys and young men in East London through singing, led by Living Song
Beat Exchange – bringing samba into community spaces for young people with a migration background, led by Pumpkin Jigsaw
Join: Qube Live Sessions – a jam series created and led by young people at Lambeth-based youth centre Yellow Qube

If you would like to find out more about, or be put in touch with, any of the projects then please contact us via info@sound-connections.org.uk

We are grateful to the National Foundation for Youth Music for supporting Generate, Innovate and the Music Education Hub fund, and the City of London Corporation’s charity, City Bridge Trust, for funding Impact.