Music tuition for 70 disadvantaged London children

We hope that you and your loved ones are all keeping safe and healthy, and we would like to bring you some news of what World Heart Beat has been up to in this extraordinary time. 

“In these times, oneness, and the feeling of community and humanity are so vitally important. Music has the unbelievable magic of being able to bring these feelings into our lives. I can’t imagine a life without music.”

Sahana Gero, World Heart Beat Founder and Artistic Director

We believe this is a critical time for us to support our students, and therefore we have taken World Heart Beat Music Academy online and are offering music making sessions to include 1:1 lessons and supported practice, as well as social sessions, for EVERY young person. That’s 350 students and 475 sessions every week!  

The coronavirus crisis is making life very tough for some young people, particularly those living in challenging circumstances who may feel heightened levels of anxiety and loneliness. Being unable to continue with music lessons can make our young people feel disconnected from not seeing their World Heart Beat ‘family’ who provide them with support which they may be missing at home. It’s also a change to their weekly routine at a difficult and isolating time, and a discontinuity of their music learning which gives them a sense of purpose and helps boost self-confidence.

With these factors in mind, World Heart Beat Music Academy has launched its GlobalGiving BE THERE campaign to request funding to support all our young people with the opportunity for music learning, particularly those living in difficult circumstances. Please help us by supporting our campaign now!

To help drive awareness of our campaign, more than one hundred of our young musicians have come together online to produce their own lockdown music video #worldheartbeatathome. Stevie Wonder’s legendary and uplifting classic ‘Another Star’ was chosen; the perfect track to reflect the academy’s joyous and passionate spirit to our friends, supporters and the world at large. We are delighted to share our music video with you here https://worldheartbeat.org/lockdown-video-fundraiser/.

We also have two further video projects to be announced shortly, which are expected to reach an international audience when shown later on this month. Please watch this space for more updates!

We have been given the amazing in kind support by A-lister Nick Cohen (top UK session bassist and songwriter whose credits includes Eurythmics, Roy Ayers and Massive Attack) who arranged and mixed the audio of one of our lockdown videos, and by two times Grammy award winning Producer-Mixer-Engineer Craig Cameron (UNKLE, Adele, Annie Lennox, Grace Jones, Tina Turner, Suzanne Vega, Amy Winehouse) and edited by Michael Csanyi-Wills, award winning composer with credits that include feature length film scores.

We are proud to announce our partnership with ZEDRA who are sponsoring our Jazz development programme. ZEDRA’s partnership will fund the participation of eight talented young musicians with significant promise, for whom support is needed to enable them to reach their full potential. Our jazz students are receiving tuition from exceptional musicians even during this lockdown period. 

Our Widening Horizons Programme supported by the Jack Petchey Foundation for young volunteers (aged 15 - 25 years) has now launched. We are delighted to announce our Heartbeat Collective, a group of seven young people selected for their passion for music and a desire to make a positive contribution to the academy and the local community.

To get you in the mood and to awaken the vocal chords, the highly talented vocalist and lyric soprano Ilona Domnich has started her Morning Wake Up classes which are FREE and open to all young people, every Wednesday morning. Please email us if you’d like further information.

We have taken part once again in the Wandsworth Arts Fringe (8 - 24th May), the annual festival highlighting local music, arts, theatre and dance this year from the comfort of your own living room. We contributed six performances from our World Heart Beat musicians including vocal wake up sessions, guitar and piano solos, a voice instrumentalisation session and our lockdown video.

We are also delighted to announce our new, updated website with all the latest information on music learning options and teacher blogs, news and updates, fundraising activity and within the local community.

We hope that when brighter days return, our young people will be well and happy, and ready to come together once again to play and perform for you again in person!

Links:

• World Heart Beat - New Website
• WHB Students singing Stevie Wonder - Lockdown Video Fundraiser

GlobalGiving - January 2020 

Happy New Year from us all at World Heart Beat Music Academy and welcome to the roaring '20s' - another exceptional golden age for music! We have already started off the year so positively. 

We have started off the year so positively following a successful Open Day at the end of 2019. We are delighted to report that we have more students than ever coming through the door enquiring about music lessons. Just over half of our students are on bursary assisted places, supporting our aim to realise every young person’s potential and giving them the opportunity to learn an instrument.              

The year sees a whole host of exciting concerts and events lined up for World Heart Beat. We have already had our first concert of the year entitled ‘Songs on the Spectrum’ by piano composer Michael Csanyi-Wills and Professional Opera Singer James Robinson May. It was a truly moving performance for our students and audience to experience, reflecting on James’ recent adult diagnosis of autism and the trials and tribulations it brings. For our next event, we have a jazz concert which we would like to invite you, showcasing our jazz students on Monday 30th March at 7.30pm. For further details, please visit:  www.ticketsource.co.uk/whb 

We are excited to be part of the nationwide Learn to Play Day, an opportunity to encourage all children into the joys of learning music. Young students can visit the academy on Saturday 28th March and trial any instrument of their choice with advice given by our talented students at the academy. Alongside this opportunity for young students, we are also about to launch our Widening Horizons Programme, supported by the Jack Petchey Foundation for young volunteers (aged 15 - 25 years). This provides opportunities to work within our community through active citizenship and will include training in music related events organisation, marketing, design and digital media, video, radio and TV production, sound engineering and front of house roles. Please visit the linkhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yc2QcuswGk  

We wanted to let you know about World Heart Beat’s and supporter Nick Thomlinson’s national win of the 2019 Achates Individual Philanthropy Award, the only annual prize that celebrates first-time supporters of the arts in the UK. Nick was presented with a sculpture by the renowned British artist, Peter Brooke-Ball MRBS and World Heart Beat Music Academy received a £5,000 donation from the Achates Philanthropy Foundation which will be spent on much-needed instruments – including alto and tenor saxophones, trumpets, trombones, drum kits, cymbals, pianos and a double bass – for young people in Wandsworth.  

At the end of last year, World Heart Beat’s 51st State Band put on a fabulous concert with two  performances at the Putney Arts Theatre. We had a full house on both occasions and it provided an evening of exceptional musical talent from our students. A selection of jazz and film scores to the greats of Aretha Franklin and Freddie Mercury were performed by seventy plus young musicians who created an upbeat and inspirational musical extravaganza for all. Please visit the link here: https://youtu.be/XSQPRf_QmrA 

And finally, building developments and investment are coming along nicely for our new music education centre and venue at Embassy Gardens in London’s Nine Elms, a major area of regeneration on London’s southbank. If you would like to contribute to our fundraising target please visit here: https://www.worldheartbeat.org/embassygardens/ 

A huge thank you for all that you do to make World Heart Beat what it is and for adding so much to the happiness and future of our children through music. We look forward to updating you with further exciting news as the year develops!