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The Evolve Project - With Adam Perkins & Ben Anderson
5 Plays1 year ago
This week we are joined by Adam Perkins of the Lincolnshire Evolve Music Project, co-hosted by guest star Ben Anderson.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week's edition of TLC Presents the Arts Pod. It's Danny here in for our other hosts. I would like to welcome this week onto our Arts Pod two very special guests, a voice that some of you have heard before if you tuned into a previous episode and a brand new voice. So we'll start with the brand new voice. I am joined today by Adam Perkins. Adam is the project coordinator for the Evolve project.
Evolve Music Project Overview
00:00:50
Speaker
Hi, Adam. Hello, how are we doing?
00:00:53
Speaker
It's going to be a good chance right now to find out more about the project. Alongside me, sort of co-presenting slash co-investigating Evolve is the one and only creative and executive director of the Lincoln Art Center, Ben Anderson. Ben, how are you? I'm good. Thank you. Really happy to be here to talk about the amazing project that is Evolve and all of Adam's work. Can't wait to talk about it.
00:01:17
Speaker
Well, let's jump in. Let's jump in. Let's start with, let's just get to know you a little bit quick, Adam, about, um, sort of your, your, your, your practice, I guess. So, um, yeah. And in a nice short snappy burst, who are you and, um, how did you get here? Okay. So I am the project coordinator for Evolve.
00:01:36
Speaker
I joined the team a year and a half ago, coordinating the Evolve Music Project. It's been going for, I want to say eight years. There's been different staff within the team who have led the project. Just in a nutshell, it's a really exciting music project based around performance and around the music industry and connectivity between schools and local art centres.
Adam's Background and Passion for Music
00:02:01
Speaker
So yeah, that's it in a nutshell, basically. And my background as well, I would bore you to death
00:02:05
Speaker
But my main experiences are within schools, within education. I've had various roles, pastoral managers, TA, you know, all those kind of roles. And I've worked in children's services as well. And then I'm just a passionate musician myself. So I perform in a rock band and I've lived for music, I guess would be the way I'd describe
Transformative Impact of Arts on Youth
00:02:27
Speaker
myself. I think Adam is being modest in that he does amazing work with young people. And I think that
00:02:36
Speaker
It's a really great example of when we connect the arts with some of the work that we're trying to do around transforming the lives of young people because we know that young people have limited or lesser access to the arts and cultural industries at the moment and we know that the impact and we also know that there's a humongous mental health crisis within young people as well.
00:03:01
Speaker
And we know that the power of the arts can do to transform people's happiness and wellbeing. And so Adam's got so much history in working with young people at risk, young people who might be excluded from school or in other areas and settings.
Team Skills and Workshops
00:03:19
Speaker
And so to couple all of that experience with what we're trying to do around music education, what we're trying to do around combating mental health and wellbeing challenges within young people,
00:03:29
Speaker
It's really exciting that Adam's doing that work and so yeah I'm just here to advocate for him really because he needs to dig himself up way more.
00:03:38
Speaker
You know, you're like the support act to Adam today. Yeah, I'm high. Just while we're on the topic, what do you play, Adam? What's your, uh, your poison isn't the right expression, but what is your choice? So I guess my main instrument would be playing the drums. Um, but I play the guitar, play the bass.
00:04:02
Speaker
Do a little bit of singing. I can play it, I can rock out a song on a piano if you're really forced me to. You can essentially multi-roll an entire band by the sound of it. It helps with the projects. I'm just going to mention, I do have a team of emerging music leaders. I've got Jamie, Ewan, Jasmine, Miles and Hannah.
00:04:19
Speaker
And actually on the back of what Ben just said about how impactful the project is, those guys, they all bring their own musical experiences as well. Which I just said, you know, I could do a bit of vocals. I'm not a confident singer and we do talk about a lot with the young people when we do vocal pieces. Because again, we just talk about mental health and sort of developing personal skills. I believe that.
00:04:43
Speaker
vocals and singing is a really good way of sort of testing your self-confidence and your self-worth and I'm quite fortunate that our emerging music leaders we've got some amazing singers for example who can bring their skills in and work with young people so.
00:04:59
Speaker
Fabulous. What I'd like to get an idea of is how does Evolve work? So you work in schools. Do you sort of replace the music lessons on curriculum? Do you go to primary? Do you go to secondary? What is the day-to-day practice of Evolve?
00:05:20
Speaker
So essentially yeah we work within schools and primarily it's it's an addition to their curriculum so you most of the schools we work as an after-school extracurricular activity and we offer 16 hours worth of workshops that usually is eight weeks up to two hours we are quite flexible so that was laid out but every school's different every school's got a different timetable
00:05:45
Speaker
Age range wise, we predominantly work with secondary school. We have recently started working with a primary school, working with year fours and fives, which is a totally different approach because of the age group and different barriers at age and what they want to do. Because again, working with different age groups, they've all got different ideas within their own musical journeys that are different stages. So yeah, we go in with the emerging music leaders that I mentioned before,
00:06:15
Speaker
and we plan and facilitate music workshops around performance mainly.
00:06:21
Speaker
but there's a lot of additional parts we discuss so for example a huge part of it is about running and developing your own live music events and everything that comes with that basically you know sometimes even the boring stuff health and safety risk assessing all that kind of admin stuff we do discuss that then we do the more fun stuff if you like around marketing around promoting your own shows around stage management around technical work as well
00:06:47
Speaker
And then during the project, so that's sort of, in a nutshell, the different parts we do within school. We work with a range of venues across the county. Some of them I'd never worked with before, before this. I've never been even in those venues before I had this role. And they are kind enough to welcome the groups from the school in to do what we call like a venue tour or a venue visit.
00:07:14
Speaker
I'm going to example Lincoln Art Centre, we recently had Pembroke Academy in and the technical team there did an incredible afternoon of workshops around looking at lighting, looking at sound, looking at just giving the really big insight into how they run a show and how every
00:07:35
Speaker
you know, individual who works within the centre and what they do for a show basically. And the young people, they leave those
00:07:45
Speaker
We go in there with our objective, like I said, to learn about the industry and about how they can participate in the future and what goes on behind the scenes. But they leave a workshop like that absolutely buzzing. And I think, again, we talked about mental health and personal development. We've had some lovely reflections with some of the projects where we've had young people where teachers have said that they're really quiet in school, they don't really socialise, they've got difficulties around that.
Evolve's Live Performances Impact
00:08:14
Speaker
And then, for example, in Louth, but by the end of the project, we had a young person who I think is even going to go back and do sound again with Mike at the theatre because this young man just began the project. So, you know, he's quite quiet, quite modest. I think he can sing. He wasn't quite letting on, but I think he's the singer at heart.
00:08:35
Speaker
But he ended up working on the desk doing the audio, and we know that that is a hugely pressured job. You know, that can go wrong so easily. And it got to the point, you know, this lad's 13 years old, and he got to the point where Mike just left into it, just said, yeah, you're doing everything fine, and it's not an easy thing to do. So off the back of those venue visits, that's what we hope that they're inspired with those roles.
00:09:00
Speaker
We have go and see events as well, so we take the young people into the venue to just witness a performance, be inspired, see how the venue works with performers and the audience, and we try and engage, if we can, engage the musicians with the young people as well, so a bit of the Q&A, so they've got an insight to that. And then the final thing,
00:09:25
Speaker
is um right at the end is kind of the final result is that they do they put on and perform their own live music performance within the venue um and i gotta say it's magic when i when i first did these it was i was very nervous so we started the first ones that begin this year in january after working in that first term
00:09:45
Speaker
and leading up to Christmas and I was very nervous, there's a lot of moving parts, you're working with venue staff, you're working with school staff, you're working with young people and working with emerging music leaders, I'm working with a lot of different people and the way it comes together, after all that, it's
00:10:01
Speaker
it's outstanding and I, you know, it's, I'm going to say tear jerking, you know, I've talked to teaching staff, we've had tears in our eyes with just how magic it is when you see those young people and not, you know, we think about performances, you know, okay, yeah, get on stage and you've got, you know, kids, they've never performed to anyone before and suddenly they're performing to 200 people on this massive stage with this incredible lighting rig and sound. But then you've got all the young people who
00:10:29
Speaker
they don't even set foot on that stage, but they're stage managing, you know, we've had, I'm going to say again, there's a student and she didn't perform at the drill with Pembroke Academy, but she just, you know, halfway through the project just just came out of nowhere was like, I want to be stage manager. And then on the night, she just
00:10:48
Speaker
just ran it. I'm just going to say it, you know, she's must be 14, 15. Absolutely. We just step back like, yeah, you've got this, you know, all these changes after each performance just really blew us away. And so, yeah, so those final life performances, you know, they are, I'm going to say magic.
00:11:03
Speaker
And do these students expect that these other sort of adjacent opportunities to performing come up as part of this process? So was that student expecting to find an opportunity to stage manage or the one you mentioned previously to engineer sound through the PA? Were those opportunities communicated or did they just sort of get found along the way? Well, a bit like what Ben was saying before about opportunities and like we've got, you know, a lot of
00:11:31
Speaker
Just geographically, Lincolnshire is massive and there's a lot of young people who have never stepped foot in a theatre, never mind understanding what goes on behind the scenes. And we tend to, at the beginning of the project, we always ask, I do like a hands up, who's been to a gig, who's been to a concert, to a theatre?
00:11:50
Speaker
And it's half the class mags, you know, and then you will have some young people, like you say, who they do have an understanding because they've had the opportunity. They're part of theatre groups or they've been part of productions through school or through local groups, but they're not that's not common, is it? You know, it's not something that is available to young people. And so, yeah, so to the majority of these young people, those roles are totally brand new. And it's it's always quite funny because when
00:12:20
Speaker
We do a workshop around roles within the arts and within hosting a live event. But first, I find myself saying, if this doesn't make any sense, don't worry, come to us afterwards. And sometimes it is completely brand new to young people and they've almost got to, we show them examples of, you know, different shows where
Evolve's Role in Education and Arts Connection
00:12:40
Speaker
the lighting's amazing or they've got the audience participating because of the coordination with the audience and things like that.
00:12:46
Speaker
Um, but yeah, you know, they just, it is brand new. And again, this is why I'm so thankful to the venues for having us in before the final performance is because they don't really fully understand that until they see it. So again, I'm going to go back to Lincoln Art Center. We had, um, Steve, he had young people put in a PA system together with an effects unit with, you know, showing, you know, power power damps, you know, how it runs out to a microphone for a desk.
00:13:15
Speaker
And then we had Tom with light and they literally had some of the lighting units there and with a lighting desk and how that works. And they discussed programming lighting for different shows. I won't talk too much about lighting because I don't know as much. I'm learning as much as young people with that.
00:13:30
Speaker
And that's when I'm really thankful to the venues and to the staff because that's when the young people then come to us in the next project and like, I want to be on sound. I want to do the lights. I want to stage manage because suddenly they're like, I've seen it. Okay. This is, this is cool. This is, uh, you know, and, and I think that you also, one bit of feedback I get from young people is the, the appreciation that it's a difficult job, you know, and it's really important. And we always say there, there are no show, there's no shows without these technicians and without these staff.
00:13:59
Speaker
And the young people really appreciate that. So yeah, to answer your question, pretty much brand new to the majority of our young people. Great. It's great that they pick up so many employability, opportunity, skills as part of that journey when they essentially are signing up to engage in a music project. There's a lot more to it.
00:14:17
Speaker
I think what Adam's also summarised really nicely there is that yes, the project connects to 15 odd schools. Yes, we've had 15 odd emerging music leaders over the lifetime of the project that are developing skills and developing their professional
00:14:37
Speaker
abilities. Yes, we've worked with 20 odd teachers. Yes, you know, hundreds of young people have been put through Arts Award. Hundreds of young people have been engaged as literal music producers or event producers. And yes, thousands of people have engaged at watching those things, those events that those young people have made. Yes, all of that stuff is happening and it's brilliant. But what
00:15:02
Speaker
I think the magic of Evolve is that it acts as a glue between the cultural ecology that exists within Lincolnshire and the education ecology that exists in Lincolnshire. And that glue is really, really hard to come by.
00:15:21
Speaker
Schools struggle to get into theatre spaces, into performance venues, they struggle to get on the coach, even to afford to get the coach to get the kids there. We know that arts and cultural experiences are on the decline for children and young people.
00:15:40
Speaker
And so having a project that creates this glue so that we now have a first-hand relationship with teachers all over a venue. And it's a generous project. It's not just about Lincoln Art Centre having a relationship with venues.
00:15:59
Speaker
and, sorry, rhythm schools. But it's about all venues, or many venues across Lincolnshire, having a relationship with schools and teachers and developing that relationship. And I think that glue cannot be underestimated. The amount of things, you know, even today,
00:16:17
Speaker
I was writing an invitation to teachers to attend an event at the Art Centre. It doesn't relate to Evolve in any way, really. But because of that relationship, they're now being able to access free tickets to other things as part of other schemes that we're running. And that wouldn't have happened without that glue. So it's so integral that Evolve exists, really, to be that glue. And I mean, it's just a huge thank you to
00:16:43
Speaker
to all the funders that make that possible and all the venue partners that invest their time into that and all of the schools that, you know, don't just go got another thing that I have to deal with as well as teaching these kids. Also, you know, they open the doors, they do it with a smile.
00:16:59
Speaker
And to be honest, I think that's credit to Adam and his approach as well and the emerging music leaders who are brilliant, like really good people. Yeah, they're amazing. They really bring so much to the project. One of our objectives around working with the emerging music leaders is about them increasing their own experiences and
00:17:22
Speaker
participatory music delivery and you know learning new skills but actually I'd say today brings so much for me as the coordinator you know I learned so much from them. Just to reflect what Ben said about the connectivity between schools and the venues themselves, I actually have a clip that I would like to play with some feedback from
00:17:43
Speaker
It's from Walton Academy and they put on their performance. They did the full Evolve project with us recently in their performance at the Grantham Guildhall Art Centre. I asked them for some feedback and they actually gave us a view about how they feel a connectivity with that venue. So we'll play it now.
00:18:02
Speaker
It made us close as a group. We're now friends and that. It's calm. How does that happen? Why do you think that happens? I think because we're collaborating on songs together. So it's not just like we're working together in a classroom. We're actually producing something together. And if people are doing that kind of interest. Yeah. If people are doing their own solos as well, they're asking. They might be asking other people to help out with it. So we're just kind of. And we're spending much more time outside of school together. We're hanging out with all lunches rehearsing. So we get to spend a lot of time together.
00:18:31
Speaker
And then just to go back to the point again, Danny, that you asked about, you know, have these young people, have these young people, have they engaged with these additional roles within venues before as well?
Feedback and Personal Growth
00:18:44
Speaker
Again, we had Lincoln Castle Academy, and they worked with Lincoln Museum, previously known as the Collection, just for anyone who doesn't know. And again, it was quite a different setup. We had an external technician come in and work with the staff within the venue. And again, I've got a young man who
00:19:01
Speaker
He recently actually would start the project again. We were going through photographs of the final performance and he gave a really good description to the new members of our Evolve group about what they did with the technical side. So yeah, we'll play that as well. This is the mixing desk. So mixing desk, I normally use for like balancing audio but also sometimes
00:19:28
Speaker
like giving effects sometimes and we all made sure that everything was ready we rehearsed another thing is uh here uh you see me over there i made a visualizer uh for like so i asked people what they like if anyone wanted anything in the background while they were performing then there were lights as well i'm not sure where they are but they were like colorful lights yeah they were set up in that photo but there were colorful lights and you could choose what color you wanted them so like depending on your song it was really
00:19:55
Speaker
loud and stuff, you could make it like rainbow, it was quiet, you could make it purple, all that stuff and yeah. And basically he reflects with the group just about how he's quite excited about the new roles and how when they were in the venue itself they sort of contributed to the performances that they put on as well.
00:20:15
Speaker
and one thing we always discuss as well for those young people who do perform but are less interested in the technical side, we always reflect on as performers having that knowledge and having that engagement and with a team when you work within a venue is key, it's really important to understand that and just to
00:20:36
Speaker
Again, we spoke before about personal skills and mental health and just that general engagement as a person within the arts. There's a lot around, a lot of discussion during the projects around engaging with each other. And again, I am going to play you some more feedback from Walter the Academy.
00:20:56
Speaker
basically around how they've developed as a group into like just personally and it was really again I used the word magic with the final performance and I've got to say I love music I live for music and this is a music project I've got to say for me personally the reflection and the just watching that group grow
00:21:18
Speaker
as a group of young human beings working together and solving problems and listening to each other's ideas and respecting when things change and growing that resilience as they do the project. That's probably my favorite part to witness. I think that's something that we've discussed a lot with Ben and other staff at Lincoln Art Centre about how important that is and we're really trying to sort of evidence that during the project and display that to other funders and
00:21:48
Speaker
art centre and just say how important that is and again we'll play that clip for you now but there's another again when we were doing some interviews with the Louth Academy again we had a girl who said to us at the beginning of the project she didn't have any friends in the group you know she didn't know anyone she played bass she played guitar and I remember one really early on she was always quite upset actually she felt like the other group as you would you know all the groups are getting together and they're doing all these songs
00:22:17
Speaker
she got quite upset and she spoke to me and I don't know what to do you know I don't know anyone here and then on the final day she sat in her band and um I will find this recording at some point but she um she reflects on how they're like now her best friends and they all came together and put this on together and honestly it was just so again it's that thing of like okay so how did that happen you know how did that get to that you know it's you know
00:22:43
Speaker
from this tearful young person who feels alone and alienated to on stage with four, you know, she's in a five piece band performing two songs and saying, oh yeah, I see them out of school now and they're my best friends.
00:22:56
Speaker
What do you think about the Grantham Guildhold Art Centre? I can't speak today. It's my favourite place. It's like my second home. I love it here. We're so lucky to have it, to be honest. Because if you didn't have it, then we would have to travel miles out to go to see something. So it's quite good to be able to have something local. It's more open to the general public, whereas a school environment, lots of people don't feel comfortable stepping in if you've never been there before. But this is something that's... Common turf. Yeah.
00:23:23
Speaker
you would have been to see different things here. And so it's more when we're performing, it's more to the general public rather than just our schools. Okay, great. That's
Structure and Leadership of Evolve
00:23:34
Speaker
so that's amazing to hear that you've got these accounts. And I suppose the next thing I'd like to talk about is the emerging leaders. Okay, so we've mentioned a couple of times now. So the structure of
00:23:50
Speaker
The project of Evolve is that sort of you are the coordinator and then to help you reach all of these different young people, you bring in external emerging music leaders. What is that process like in terms of recruiting, in terms of what you look for? How do those leaders find these opportunities? How do you communicate those? What do you look for?
00:24:17
Speaker
So yeah, you're right. Yeah, for you, use music, one of the key goals is to, to recruit emerging music leaders. And like I say, it's, it's about new opportunities for them, like learning how to plan, facilitate, and, and also just the importance of like a youth led project as well. So we, yeah, we advertise for freelance musicians who are looking for experiences, particularly within education, working with young people.
00:24:43
Speaker
and also experience working with theatres and venues. If I think about the team we have currently,
00:24:52
Speaker
I know there are some that when they interviewed and they came forward for these posts they we had some that said I've got loads of experience with organizing events and performing I had zero experience working with young people and that's something I want to explore perhaps to look into teaching or looking doing similar roles around you know project work or you know working children's services or anything that and then
00:25:16
Speaker
We've got the other side where we've got emerging music leaders who came and said, we've got loads of experience worker, young people. I'm a musician, but I've never worked in this capacity working at, you know, facilitating music workshops, but also I want to learn how to work with, with venues, you know, and, and actually that side of, um, organizing events is something that is valuable to them as well. And so throughout the project, so yeah, we, we've employed, we've probably got five emerging music leaders working
00:25:46
Speaker
with me. They've all run a project with me so far and then they've started again. I gave them the option whether they wanted to change schools and change venues and things like that just for different experiences. Constantly asking for feedback. So again, we're trialing new things. I have a catch-up every Friday morning. We spent this morning about getting into different schools, working with each other just for those different experiences, working with different teaching staff and environments and young people.
00:26:14
Speaker
But yeah, and it's just essentially just looking at through these projects, building their own confidence as freelance musicians and then looking at new opportunities as well. And I know that some of them
00:26:33
Speaker
have actually come to me and said because of this work we've then gone on to do these other you know freelance jobs or we've gained the confidence to go and work within different institutions and and it's lovely to see that development as well but like I said at the beginning it's interesting that they they say that but then I regularly say to them like they bring so much if you know that I wouldn't consider you know I wouldn't even because again with any creative project the sky's the limit isn't it you know where
00:27:02
Speaker
you know where do you you've got to sit down sometimes and pin down what are we going to do because you know we just say we're a music project that can be a million things that can be so much um and those guys are always bringing ideas in and just um and and one one skill we were reflected on this morning actually is that um it's about adjusting so sometimes we'll plan and we will plan out a you know a rigid
00:27:29
Speaker
This is how it's going to work. These are the resources. These are the outcomes. This is what we want to see as a result from the young people that's had the impact on them. And then you get there and things change immediately. And, and again, that's something we were sort of laughing about today about how it just can, you know, it can really test your resilience for adjusting to that. And, and I'm thankful to those guys because, because of their ability as musicians that can be done, you know, it can be right. Okay. We've done, we've, we want to do a whole.
00:27:59
Speaker
a whole workshop on technical skills and roles within creating a project but then suddenly the technology is not working. Okay we'll get some gem bays out and we're going to do some rhythms and syncopation and improvisation instead you know and I think that's something that I really appreciate that development with them like getting through the project basically.
00:28:22
Speaker
What do you feel is the biggest impact of projects like this on, Ben used the key term earlier, the Lincolnshire cultural ecology. How do you know that what you're doing is increasing the talent, the artistic talent that exists in this county?
00:28:43
Speaker
opportunities immediately. I think it's that opportunity to actually have the time and engagement with musical professionals and arts professionals around how to develop your own personal musician skills. But like we said before, it's about that self-confidence and working with people.
00:29:06
Speaker
It sounds trivial sometimes, but it really is not. It's huge.
Cultural Impact in Lincolnshire
00:29:10
Speaker
It's, you know, you can be the greatest pianist in the world, but if you can't work with all the musicians and work with venue technicians and staff and understand the process that goes on behind that, it's not going to work. And I think the impact, like I said before about the final performance is that
00:29:32
Speaker
We really see that impact is in the confidence from those young people from the beginning to the end and how they're working together as a group. And some of these groups are large. There's 30 of them. And that's a worry at the beginning. You think, how are we going to get 30 young people? And they're all different ages in some of these schools. They're year sevens to year 11s. How are they going to work together? And I think that's key at the end. That's social.
00:29:59
Speaker
and sort of work that comes together. With the celebration, sorry then, with the celebration of a flagship event. Absolutely, it's memorable, they'll never forget that. I hope, you know, it's something that, it's a benchmark of, I've achieved this, so my, you know, within their own self, selfhood, if you like, that actually, me as a person, I did this, I put, I contributed to this huge event that happened in my local art centre.
00:30:24
Speaker
And Ben, a similar question, I suppose, for you is part of the Lincoln Art Centre's ambition for the next few years is to see that offer grow in the county. From your perspective, what Adam's just reflected on look like?
00:30:40
Speaker
Well, I guess the superpower here is that this project is situated within a, well, lots of things, people, partnerships, organisations, synergies come together to make a project like this happen and to make those magic moments where, you know,
00:31:03
Speaker
through art or creativity, we've made friends or we felt belonging or we felt valued or we've got a pride of place because we've created something in our art centre or we've raised aspiration or ambition because we've put on a flagship event or we've developed skills, all of those things.
00:31:23
Speaker
require significant partnerships and I think the superpower with this project is that there's a coalescing of people and organisations so that you know the universe is situated within a university in which there's a significant music programme of which there's loads of graduates that are churning out of the university, talented individuals and people who then go on to become emerging music leaders. They stay because they become emerging music leaders, they have insight and impact
00:31:49
Speaker
in their local area and they develop a sense of place, which is phenomenal. We talk about placemaking a lot and this project is doing that through people, through the development of people. And I guess from a Lincoln Arts Centre perspective, as a sector development, as an organisation that's focused on
00:32:08
Speaker
talent development sector development as a home for new artists and new artistic ideas. It feels really right that it's situated within the Arts Centre's wheelhouse. I'm really delighted that we've been able to support Evolve Transition into this next phase of work and hopefully secure it long into the future as well through continued advocacy and lobbying to fund us.
00:32:33
Speaker
because it is this kind of work that embeds sector development and make sure that people can stick around and do things and create. Because in a place like Lincolnshire, you do need people to stick around and make stuff happen. Absolutely. People is our greatest power and we need to invest in the people to make the stuff happen. And so I see projects like this doing that. And also providing a route in and a pathway for our young people and our children
00:33:02
Speaker
from primary school age now until secondary school age to then becoming a student and then becoming a graduate and then having a professional career in it. There's a real clear pathway for me and developing through projects like this. And I just wish we could have like an evolve for every discipline.
00:33:20
Speaker
because it's brilliant. So yes, sector development is huge and it's such a fundamental part and the superpower of the project is these people, you know, university sort of funders or agencies, brilliant youth music, fundingers, collaborations like the likes of the Music Education Hub as well, locally. So all of those things come together to make a project like this.
00:33:50
Speaker
So
Involvement and Partnerships
00:33:51
Speaker
yeah, the connectivity between talking about connectivity as we spoke about earlier around education establishments and arts organisations, there's also something about a coalescing of people and I often say people coalesce around ideas.
00:34:05
Speaker
like we don't coalesce around problems, we coalesce around ideas to overcome the problems. And this is a great example of where it's a brilliant idea that we've all been able to get behind and get around. And the idea is really, and of course it navigates mental health challenges for young people, it navigates skills development, it increases talent retention, all of those good things happen and they're overcoming challenges that may be a particular place
00:34:29
Speaker
particularly around rurality, the biggest challenge for schools in Lincolnshire is it's a long way to go. It's a long way to go to get the kids to wherever, to the local arts centre and usually it genuinely has down some roads and the bus can't get there and whatever.
00:34:47
Speaker
So I think there's something, yeah, there's something for me about the superpower of the project being around that connectivity. I mean, yeah, it's great. And for us, it makes total sense that it sits within our wheelhouse. I thought about you guys, like, just go. There's something some of the young people have said a number of times, actually, that they say it's like a second home, like when they go into, like, an art space. An art space can be a safe space and it can feel like home for creatives.
00:35:14
Speaker
Again, emerging music leaders and myself and staff at the Lincoln Art Centre, we talk about how when you are an artist or in any form, you know, it is part of your own identity and that's something we're reflected on again at the go and see event sometimes, you know, young people come out saying that they feel a part of that venue now, that we've been here, it's familiar, it's safe,
00:35:38
Speaker
and it's just a place that we can create and perform. Yeah, go see is such an underrated thing, getting people through the door in the first instance and noting that it's not scary or it's not as intimidating as one might think and it's not a million miles away from what you're doing now and there is a pathway to do it, even if you don't want to do it,
00:36:02
Speaker
as a career pathway but just as a thing that enriches your life because we're all artists deep down, we all have creativity within us and having an avenue to express creativity is so important.
00:36:18
Speaker
You know, there's an article recently, I can't remember who, I can't remember, I remember reading it around how culture and cultural activity is almost like a public service, that it should be treated as such because that's what makes us human, particularly in a world where, you know, AI and computers and technology is so increasingly important. What makes us human is the ability to be creative and to make art.
00:36:46
Speaker
And so I think it's really important. I think that's incredibly wise words. I want to just think practically for a second. So if I'm one of these few categories, how do I involve myself in the growing phase or the next phase of the current phase of evolve?
00:37:07
Speaker
a art center or a space of cultural offering somewhere in Lincolnshire or beyond, depending on the growth of this. How do I involve myself with Evolve? If I'm working at a school, if I'm a music leader at school, how do I start that connection to ask if my school students can also be engaged? If I am a young person with a musical talent that wants to be part of this emerging leader program, how do I involve myself?
00:37:37
Speaker
And if I'm an even younger person at school who just wants to find out more about the industry or wants to play a bit more regularly, how do I go about getting my school to engage with Evolve? Four different categories of approach. I'm going to leave all of them to you, Adam, other than copping out on this one. All of them to you, other than the venues one. I'll address that one first. I'm glad you're taking that one, Ben.
00:38:02
Speaker
because as a venue I think that it's like it's a make like this is a gift it's a total gift of a project like for all the reasons that we've just explained so why wouldn't you want to get involved however I would say that it does require a little bit of time it does require a little bit of investment from you not not financial you know not necessarily financial um but you know in terms of resource in terms of people in terms of space
00:38:25
Speaker
in terms of people's time and energies and investment in understanding what it is and what we're trying to do. And it does require that. And I know that in Lincolnshire and the surrounding area, that is increasingly difficult to grasp when you're tackling lots of different things trying to keep the door open, et cetera. So I really understand that.
00:38:46
Speaker
but it does require that, you know, if we're going to make impact in young people's lives and we're going to really, you know, this is the work, this is what we want to do, it does require that and I just encourage Venue to come forward who want to go on that journey with us but also want to invest that time, want to invest that energy into creating space for children and young people to make
00:39:11
Speaker
creative things happen because it does require that. And I think that what we've what we've seen over the last however many years that the project has been running is that investment from venues and it's increasingly difficult to make space and time for that. And I say that as a venue leader who you know there's not enough hours in the day
00:39:30
Speaker
to do all the things that we want to do and sometimes it's about prioritisation and you know I'd much rather prioritise a project that's going to connect and transform some young people's lives you know even if that means that the toilet stays clogged for another day maybe but whatever I don't know that's probably a really bad example but basically please please come
00:39:53
Speaker
and talk to myself, talk to Adam about the future of the project because the next phase is going to be even more exciting and we are looking, we're actively looking for partners to go on that next phase with us in 2024. So from the middle of 2024 onwards we'll be into another phase of the project. We're actively looking for partners to partner on the project to get them to develop funding bids etc to continue it. So
00:40:19
Speaker
That's my big plea is to other venue partners to come forward and then I'm going to hand over to Adam to do all the other.
00:40:25
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we've had a lot of school engagement. Again, similar to what Ben's saying about his role as a, you know, when you're a venue manager, there's a lot going on. I understand that for teaching staff are some of the busiest work workforce going that way. So it can be an additional workload for them. But we've had the support from the Lincoln Music Hub initially to connect with schools. And
00:40:55
Speaker
We've had some schools approaches, so we've advertised it out there on social media that we're doing this project and some schools have jumped on it. And again, from schools, we do ask about, there's a small fee and they contribute as well. We have teaching staff, support staff who join the workshops as well, just on a safeguarding level. It's something that they can support with us, just so they're supporting young people.
00:41:23
Speaker
that's been really positive actually having the teachers in with us because I think they again they're part of that journey we've talked about before so yeah that's how they engage with us emerging music leaders again when we've put out you know adverts about the role we've had a number of people come forward and you know for example
00:41:44
Speaker
This time we've had a couple of students at the University of Lincoln who have joined the team. Again, it's just about just coming forward. I'm always open to having a coffee, having a call, talking about what we do. Because I think it is quite niche. I think sometimes you see a role like this and you think, what is that? It's a little bit unusual in a good way. It's quite exciting.
00:42:13
Speaker
And we talk regularly as a team with emerging music leaders about how great this job can be and how lucky we are in a sense to...
00:42:22
Speaker
have the opportunity ourselves to do this and develop it. We said about engaging schools. One thing Ben just mentioned about moving forward, a big development we want to look at is actually there are thousands of young people in this county who are not in education or have support elsewhere, whether it's through children's services, social services. We want to engage with
00:42:49
Speaker
all the young people that we can you know it's something that if you like working with schools sometimes I heard a phrase from a colleague ages ago that sometimes it can be
00:43:02
Speaker
for when you when you're engaging schools there are certain schools that really engage with this kind of stuff all the time and that's amazing that they can engage with us but those young people in those schools because they have you know perhaps additional staff who have the time to do that there are many opportunities within this you know group of young people and then there it's about in the future finding all the young people who just don't have that opportunity at all you know whether they're
00:43:29
Speaker
you know, for the simple reason they're not even within an institution that we can contact through, for example.
Reflection and Future of Evolve
00:43:37
Speaker
OK, so I'd like to just end on a reflection on what this project looks like in the future. So what's next? And this is to both Adam and Ben. Well, I guess the current the current project runs until June twenty twenty four. That's right, isn't it? And then we're currently exploring how
00:43:59
Speaker
what changes we might want to make to the project and Adam's doing a lot of work on impact and evaluation and collecting impact and evaluation because fundamentally the core to the project is what the young people need to or want to get out of it and how they're getting out of it and their guidance
00:44:21
Speaker
in it, and sometimes we might call that co-creation, that it's fundamental to the project. So we're really trying to make sure that their voices are heard through into the next phase. And then we go into another, you know, the continuous cycle of funding, which is always fun. So we're going to be applying for some more funding from the middle of next year onwards. So we will
00:44:49
Speaker
we'll start that application in the new year. So it's a really good time for if partners want to join and that they can speak to us, if schools want to get in touch, then they can speak to us because the more, well, the more we can put into the bid now, the better and stronger that bid will be and the more evidence, the more we can evidence impact because funding is so tight at the minute and it's very competitive.
00:45:17
Speaker
So we hope that we will be going for another bit in the new year, which would land in autumn 2024, which would continue the project again. Is that right, Adam? I've got everything. Yeah, that's right. And like you say, the key part of this is the feedback from the young people themselves. I will finish after I've said this, I have a clip for you from Walton Academy giving me some ideas, literally saying this is what we want to do in the future.
00:45:45
Speaker
And again, we've talked, Ben and I have talked before about, we've talked about barriers that we have in Lincolnshire and what we think that young people, you know, what would have a great impact if we did a project with XYZ in it. But yeah, this time it's before we put these bids in, it's around what do they want?
00:46:03
Speaker
You know, and we always say, we always say it could be the, you know, you want to do a gig on the moon. You know, there's no silly, obviously that's not going to happen, but you know, we always give that as an example. We want to do a gig in space and we're like, okay, anything's great. You just give us that feedback. What do you want to do?
00:46:21
Speaker
That sounds great. I can see you going on and put you on the moon, Adam. It could happen. We're getting such some billionaires with space rockets in there. Make it happen. If you're listening, I must. Yeah, this is it. What a fun idea.
00:46:39
Speaker
Well, that's pretty much all we've got time for in this episode.
Conclusion and Future Hopes
00:46:43
Speaker
Thank you so much for sharing all of the insights from this project and helping us understand how we can become more involved, how we will no doubt see the future music marvels of the next generation
00:47:00
Speaker
hopefully with roots in, in, in Lincolnshire and, and people who have engaged with this project. So, you know, let's keep our eyes on the next Mercury prize entries for the next few years. Absolutely. We're going to end with this clip from the students at Baltimore Academy talking about the future. So what's left me to do is to say thank you so much, Adam, for joining us. Thank you. Thanks for having us. It's nice to verbally discuss what we're doing.
00:47:25
Speaker
Absolutely. And give yourself a chance to really narrate your experience over the last however many years. Absolutely, yeah. It's actually something we don't do often, isn't it? We just crack on and we don't actually sit down and think about it. So yeah, thanks for having us, Danny. It's really cool. And Ben, thanks for joining us for the journey and sharing your wisdom too. A pleasure as always. Until next time, this has been The Link Company Presents ArtsPod.
00:47:54
Speaker
I think it would have been cool as well if we went to like a show and we like got to speak to the people like saying like what they find stressful about rehearsing like almost like when we did with the band when we had that lady come from Strictly as a part of school she performed to us we sang with her as well but then also it was time at the end to sort of like ask questions and speak more about her experience and the bands experience and all of that
00:48:18
Speaker
I think being more involved in like the proper industry because like I don't know we it wasn't very professionally done when we were like sending out flyers and stuff we just decided to go out so okay I think if it was more structured and Sir was there helping out then it would have been more effective than it is now