From the smiles on the faces of these young emerging artists you can tell something special has happened: these are participants in the APRA AMCOS SongMaker workshops in September.
Supported by Arts OutWest, APRA AMCOS SongMaker workshops were held at Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre (26-27 September ) and Orange Regional Conservatorium (28-29 September).
SongMaker is a music industry mentoring program touring regional NSW. The SongMakers Holiday Sessions were presented by national music organisation, APRA AMCOS, as part of the Office for Regional Youth Holiday Break program in partnership with Create NSW. FREE places were offered to 16 young people aged 16-21.
Industry mentors at the workshop were Sydney musicians, Taka Perry and Chloe Dadd. Taka is an award-winning artist/producer/songwriter and triple j favourite whose international career has been meteoric since his discovery as a Canberra high school student on the SongMakers program. Writer/producer/performer Chloe is also a SongMakers alumnus, from regional NSW. She has worked with Lime Cordiale, Meg Mac, Courtney Barnett and others, tours with MAY-A, and will be spotlighted as a feature artist at this year’s Australian music industry conference, Big Sound.
“Coming together to explore songwriting and production they formed groups to work together for the sake of the song,” said Arts OutWest’s Patrick Coomey. “This fantastic program from @apraamcos brought the highly talented @chloe_dadd & @takaperry to work their magic with these young artists.”
“In Bathurst the artists were put into three groups with many of them working together for the first time. Collectively they created three amazing tunes: ‘Hard to Explain’, ‘Sing Louder’ and ‘Moving On’. A euphoric playback session ended with City Hall ringing out with loud applause from the audience,” Patrick said.
“In two days the participants in the Orange workshop created and produced four amazing tunes: ‘I’ll Be Your Man’, ‘Unlucky Soul’, ‘Outta My Mind’ & ‘Fly Away’. The cheers from the audience were as rapturous as if four teams had won their grand finals,” Patrick said.
“A massive thanks to @takaperry @chloedadd & Lily Richardson from @apraamcos . Also Abby Smith from @smithandjones_music for generously sharing their talents and giving insights to these young people of the possibilities available to them in pursuing their musical dreams.”
Stay tuned to Arts OutWest for a very special Live & Kicking The Next Generation.
Coming together to explore songwriting and production they formed groups to work together for the sake of the song.
Location: Bathurst (Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre) and Orange (Orange Regional Conservatorium)
When: September 26-29, 2022
Project of: APRA AMCOS
Partners: Arts OutWest, Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, Orange Regional Conservatorium
Funded by: Create NSW