Education United Kingdom Project #20896

Fundraising for our Jazz Programme

by World Heart Beat Music Academy

Project Report | Jul 28, 2023
Music making across Wandsworth, and into Newham

By Lottie Parsons | Marketing and PR

A. Disons at Trinity Buoy Wharf

Dear friends and supporters,

We’ve had an abundance of music-making opportunities and performances at all three of our venues –Kimber Road, World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens, and, since the beginning of this year, from a container in Trinity Buoy Wharf, Newham (more on this later).

Our World Heat Beat Embassy Gardens summer programme showcased a range of live music performances from the worlds of jazz, contemporary, classical and Asian music genres. A mix of international, established musicians performed as well as our emerging musicians. Our new venue is also being utilised by local creatives and musicians for recording studio hires, workshops, a performance venue for local schools (part of our music programme), company away days, and anything else in-between!

Earlier this year, Wigmore Hall selected World Heart Beat as their Charity of Support for 2023. Our fundraising concert in July enabled funds to be raised for our bursary programme and showcased some incredible artists, as well as our own emerging talent to an audience of over 500+. It was a hugely inspiring night, and we were so proud of our young musicians performing alongside such established talent. We wanted to share with you a YouTube performance from J. Wade, who with your kind donations of support has really flourished over the last few years.

Regarding local community outreach, our musicians performed at Battersea Power Station for the King’s Coronation Weekend celebrations, in front of a crowd of800+, as well as Heart Beat performances at Shillington Park and Tooting Common. The annual, family-friendly Happy Streets took place earlier this month in our local stomping ground, Nine Elms and Battersea, where we showcased some of our emerging talent and contemporary gig band once again. We’ve also performed at opening launch events for local retailers Apple and Wagamama at their new stores at Battersea Power Station. Not forgetting the annual Wandsworth Arts Fringe Festival (WAF), The Oracle Collective in conjunction with World Heart Beat showcased Endz Jazz Soul, a concert with some of London’s best jazz, soul and R&B talent, as well as providing workshops for those wanting to get ahead in the music industry.

Now, back to our third venue, a container in Trinity Buoy Wharf, Newham.T rinity Buoy Sounds is a three-year programme which launched earlier this year which sets out to transform the lives and outcomes of young people who live around Trinity Buoy Wharf (Tower Hamlets and Newham). Its vibrant music and creative focus, coupled with specialised coaching from World Heart Beat artists and teachers, aims to help young people find their passion and voice. The project helps equip them with self-confidence, skills, knowledge, networks, and a community of support in which to thrive, whilst building a strong creative community hub for young people and families at the Wharf. This pilot year, we have focused on recruiting young people, building local partnerships and developing a strong understanding of the needs and interests of the local community. We have reached over 275 young people in Tower Hamlets and Newham alone! To date, we have run 48 workshops in three local secondary schools – Bow and St Paul’s Way in Tower Hamlets and Eastlea in Newham, focusing onsong-writing, production and tabla.We have also produced two community concerts and showcases at Trinity Buoy Wharf.

Finally, last week we staged a flashmob at Battersea Power Station. We combined forces with a similar project to World Heart Beat in Brazil that supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, called Orchestra Maré do Amanhã. We will be releasing the flashmob on YouTube in a few weeks' time and we look forward to sharing this with you (please follow our socials to find out more).

Thank you so much again for your kind and incredible support. It’s much appreciated and helps us to provide life-changing opportunities for young people to thrive and find themselves in music.

With our very best wishes!

J. Wade by Roger Thomas

P. Pena by Roger Thomas

B. Marsalis and J. Joseph by Tatiana Gorilovsky

L. Wills by Roger Thomas

S. Gero and J. Joseph by Roger Thomas

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Mar 30, 2023
A stunning start to the musical season!

By Lottie Parsons | PR and Marketing

“Learning an instrument is like magic – it opens doors. Countless research tells us that children and young people learn better and faster in all areas of their life if they learn music. Coming together to make music transcends social divides. It brings humanity and joy, friendships, and happiness into the lives of our students.” Sahana Gero, Artistic Director

Dear Friends and Supporters,

At the end of last year, we opened our second music venue, our flagship 200-capacity concert hall, World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens in the heart of Nine Elms, London. We are proud to announce we have just closed our first season’s programme with over 155 musicians performing and live audiences of over 1,500!

Our second season is well under way with a plethora of concerts and performances taking place at this state-of-the-art venue. Our programme brings together internationally-recognised musicians as well as emerging artists from our academy and offers a showcase from the worlds of jazz, contemporary, Indian, classical, folk, and much more.

We give our young musicians opportunities to perform, attend workshops and take part in recording sessions at our new venue. This week, nine piano students took part in a piano masterclass with one of the most sought-after piano teachers in Britain, Hilary Coates, Professor of Piano at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London. It was an amazing opportunity for students to learn from the maestro herself, by acquiring new skills and improving technique.

Five of our young musicians was overjoyed recently when they were invited to join Omar Puente’s Cuban band live in concert at World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens. The young pianist was 9-year-old Dillon, who started learning to play piano just before lockdown, and was supported throughout with online tuition, thanks to GlobalGiving support. He is now working on classical piano grade 2 and plays in our Latin and Gig bands; he comes many times per week to learn music with us.

Our new venue will enable us to build on our existing track record of providing music education that’s accessible to all social groups, and to reach young people amidst ongoing pressures on arts funding. With our grassroots approach, and in the same way that we developed our original academy at Kimber Road, we are growing organically and reflective of the community. We’re delighted to have already started weekly vocal and piano lessons at Embassy Gardens with 30 young students; after Easter, we will be offering violin and guitar lessons too. Our new music education space will enable us to double our capacity to enable 700 children and young people across both sites, per week, to learn with us at World Heart Beat.

In January, to support families struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, we launched our Bursary campaign to provide free music tuition and instruments for children and young people. More families than ever are struggling to meet everyday bills and paying for music lessons isn’t always possible. The campaign seeks to ‘level up’ by removing barriers to participation and calls on people and businesses to give the gift of music to a child.

World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens is also a place for young people to take their love of music one step further by gaining experience in the industry and progressing their music careers. Following a successful pilot last year, in February we ran our second season of EMERGE, our flagship music industry training programme aimed at helping young people (aged 16-25 years) develop sustainable careers in music. We continue to offer free training and masterclasses covering topics like music production, working as an independent artist and building your community, as well as opportunities for 1-1 career focused mentoring and coaching.

In March, we announced our new partnership with PPL, the UK’s music licensing company for over 130,000 performers and recording rightsholders. PPL have become the first 'Young Artist Recording Sponsor’ enabling six diverse young emerging musicians to record for the first time, free of charge. The announcement follows the launch of the debut EP from Asa Martinson, the first artist in the programme, at his concert at World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens. Normally cost-prohibitive, the recordings will give the musicians, all of whom study music, train in music industry skills and perform at World Heart Beat, a foot-up in their careers. All recordings will take place on World Heart Beat’s new record label. As a registered charity which relies on support from businesses, trusts, individuals and foundations to continue our work to help transform the lives of young people, we are hugely grateful to PPL for supporting us in this way!

We look forward to welcoming you to our intimate music venue – there really is something for everyone.

A huge thank you as always for your continued support.

Happy and relaxing holidays to all this Easter!

Links:

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Dec 5, 2022
Christmas comes early at Embassy Gardens

By Lottie Parsons | Marketing and PR

Dear Friends,

We are overjoyed to announce that our second music venue, World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens is now open! It’s been a long journey since 2018 when we were awarded the space by Wandsworth Council and Ecoworld Ballymore to become its newest cultural anchor and to create a new educational and performance venue in Nine Elms.

World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens marks the first time London has welcomed a new community concert hall in the capital since 2008. As well as our flagship 200-capacity concert hall, the building will enable World Heart Beat to build on its existing track record of providing music education that is accessible to all social groups, enabling us to double our current teaching capacity, alongside our Kimber Road venue each year.

Cutting edge technology and state of the art facilities (including the first UK auditorium to install the revolutionary 360-degree d&b immersive Soundscape EnScene system, as used on tours by Bjork and Brian Eno, as well as recording studios, teaching spaces and outside broadcast studio), will enable us to introduce young people to a huge breadth of music industry skills whilst also providing an unparalleled experience for artists and audiences alike.

Created for the diverse community of inner south-west London, World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens will be a ‘cultural anchor’ for the area offering well-established music teaching as well as a busy programme of affordable concerts presented by both emerging and established international artists.Curated by World Heart Beat founder Sahana Gero MBE, the music programme brings together internationally-recognised musicians as well as emerging artists to showcase the worlds of jazz, contemporary classical, and folk. The 10-week season begins on 20 January 2023 with Julian Joseph’s Trio. However, preceding this, we have a special fundraising gala on Tuesday 17 January with the incredible pianist Yevgeny Sudbin performing a wonderful programme with all the proceeds going to the charity’s bursaries programme, to support disadvantaged children and low-income families with music instruments and lessons.

Furthering our community outreach within Wandsworth, in mid-October we took part in the Battersea Power Station launch to celebrate the momentous opening of this legendary, Grade II listed building, almost 40 years after its closure. Positioning itself as one of London’s most exciting retail and leisure destinations, we provided a day of musical entertainment including performances from our gig bands and our EMERGE musicians to over 2,000 members of the public.

In November, we took part in the Lord Mayor’s Parade; a chance for our New Orleans Band musicians to perform with tremendous energy, passion and gusto on a World Heart Beat decorated horse-drawn bus (kindly funded by ITC). We were interviewed by BBC1 aspart of over 6,500 people taking part in the 3-mile-longparade to welcome the new Lord Mayor of London. It was a hugely joyous and entertaining occasion withover 250 horses and 133 floats (50 of which are decorated) taking part in the celebrations!

We also took part in the EFG London Jazz Festival with a joint performance with the Julian Joseph Jazz Academy (JJJA) at Club 606 featuring ‘Together we go Forward’ - a chance for our young jazz musicians to really swing and showcase their love and learning of jazz. The partnering of both academies ensures the shared enrichment and creation of more well-rounded young musicians who benefit through learning, gaining experience and performance opportunities – it was a truly uplifting performance and a pleasure to take part once again at this iconic London jazz venue.

Last month, we celebrated the 51st State Band’s annual performance at the Putney Arts Theatre. Now in its 20th year, the 51st State Band represents the spirit of the academy by bringing young gifted musicians of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to learn and play together. The concert consisted of an inspiring and vibrant music programme of jazz, rock, soul and film scores. This year, an added highlight was Cuban violinist Omar Puente and the Heart Beat Latin band who provided some exceptional Latin rhythms and beats. The evening was a huge success and completely sold-out - once again a festive and unmissable event in the Wandsworth arts calendar for the local community and families alike.

To celebrate the start of the holiday season, the Word Heart Children’s Choir and the World Heart Beat Young Professionals took part in live performances of classical seasonal songs alongside a street food market and festive trade stalls as part of the Embassy Gardens Festive Fair. It was a cheery and heart-warming way to welcome in Christmas with plenty of audience singalong participation too!

Finally, why not celebrate arts and culture in London by booking yourself or gifting a family member to a Christmas present with a concert at World Heart Beat at Embassy Gardens? Choose from jazz, contemporary classical, folk and much more! https://worldheartbeat.org/whats-on/

Wishing you all a very festive, joyful and relaxing Christmas and New Year Season with friends, family and loved ones and looking forward to sharing further music news and inspiration for 2023!

With best wishes, Sahana x

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