Introducing our Virtual Workshop Series!

As the nation’s lockdown measures are set to continue for the foreseeable future, we have been working with our musical networks and partners to develop new and exciting ways to support our young musicians remotely. Following the success of our first ever Virtual Workshop earlier this month, we are thrilled to announce our new series of Virtual Workshops, offering a diverse range of opportunities and activities for all our young musicians over the coming weeks and months. 

Our Virtual Workshops will range from creative sessions with top professional musicians from all over the world to inspiring talks encompassing a variety of topics surrounding the music industry. Beginning this Thursday, the Virtual Workshops will be hosted every week with our young musicians signing up to the sessions and topics that interest them most.

Check out the upcoming sessions we have planned in our Virtual Workshop Series!

Our talented wind and brass players will be discussing an array of subjects with two leading professionals.

Jason Alder keeps a busy international performance schedule as a soloist, improviser, chamber and session musician. In addition to his own projects, Jason is also regularly found performing with various orchestras, jazz ensembles, bands, theatre groups, improvisers, and dancers throughout Europe and the United States. A bass-clarinet specialist, Jason also plays a variety of other woodwind instruments. 

Russell Gilmour is a natural trumpet specialist and a skilled cornetto player. Performing on the natural trumpet, keyed trumpet, modern trumpet and cornetto, Russell has played in more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia, and has featured on several professional recordings.

Our very own Holly Harman will take the musicians through an introduction to folk music. 

Alongside her role with Future Talent, Holly keeps busy as a freelance violinist. She plays with folk ensemble The Twisted Twenty, and runs her own string music record label, Penny Fiddle Records.

With a focus on creating melodies using a range of styles and ornamentation, the workshop should be an engaging and fun way for the musicians to improve their aural skills and experiment with a new genre to get creative with!

In this workshop, our compositionally-inclined young musicians will learn from flautist, composer and interdisciplinary artist Dr Gavin Osborn. 

Osborn’s work as a performer and creator spans acoustic, electroacoustic, composed and improvised music and with projects that explore spaces and places often in collaboration with visual artists, dancers and other interesting people.

Over the course of this session, the young musicians will be looking at the wide-ranging world of Graphic Scores, from extended notation to graphic and video scoring, exploring extended sonorities and techniques along the way.

One of the world’s leading Mridangam players and Konnakol specialists BC Manjunath will share his knowledge and skills and work with the musicians to create some fun and complex cross-rhythms.

Manju revealed an innate musical talent as a young boy, furthering his musical curiosity by training in Mridangam. His creative impulses have also led to many collaborations with other artists, from classical to fusion, in solo and ensemble performances.

Our musicians will work with Manju on counting out complex compound rhythms and time signatures, using traditional Indian classical techniques for learning rhythmic structure. Presenting a different way of learning about rhythm, this workshop will surely present lots of fun challenges and rhythmic twists.

PS: Manju will be hosting the session all the way from Bangalore, India!

Fraser Moyle works for Nordoff-Robbins, the UK’s leading creative music therapy charity who work to enrich the lives of people of all ages with life-limiting illnesses and disabilities.

Music therapists are trained to tune into the innate, human musicality within each patient by observing movements, reactions and expressions, using music to break through where words can’t, helping them to unlock memories, communicate and connect socially with family and friends, build confidence or simply provide moments of peace and joy.

Fraser will discuss the ins and outs of careers in music therapy as well as his own experiences working as a therapist.  

Holly will be joined by Kathleen Wallfisch to discuss careers across the music industry. 

Kathleen is a freelance cellist, and a member of all-female supergroup Mediaeval Baebes. She is also Managing Director of Music in Vision, an agency which brings production companies and casting directors together with musicians.

In this talk Holly and Kathleen will be discussing the many career options, including playing, that make up  musicians' portfolio careers today: What does it mean to be a freelancer? Do I have to teach? What if I want to teach yoga as well? A friendly, honest talk from two versatile musicians with 25 years of industry experience.

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We are really excited to be hosting this series of Virtual Workshops with our wonderful young musicians supported by our workshop leaders. If you would like to join our Young Musicians Development Programme or know a young musician who would be interested, drop us an email at office@futuretalent.org.

We look forward to continuing our support to gifted young musicians through accessible and inclusive opportunities like our Virtual Workshop Series.