Music tuition for 70 disadvantaged London children

“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!

https://worldheartbeat.org/whats-on/. 

A huge thank you as always for your continued support.  

Happy and relaxing holidays to all this Easter!