Soundstorm

SoundStorm at Dorset Music Service provides the opportunity for young people to explore their creative talents and enrich their lives through music while celebrating the diversity of music forms and makers.

What is SoundStorm?

SoundStorm is the award-winning music development agency for Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset, founded in 2002 to develop innovative, exciting and diverse musical opportunities for young people and the wider community in this region.

Linked to Dorset Music Service, the county council funded peripatetic instrumental service – but enjoying a considerable degree of strategic and financial independence – SoundStorm was set up as a partnership with Bournemouth Borough Council and Poole Borough Council Arts Development Units and Education Directorates.

SoundStorm sits as an invited member of the Bournemouth and Poole Arts Development teams, and has very close links within the LA education departments, as well as representing the conurbation and Dorset on a range of regional and national music-related committees.

Background and achievements

SoundStorm has gained an excellent reputation for exciting and cutting edge work and has been chosen on more than one occasion to lead on national pilot projects. In 2007-8, for example, SoundStorm was solicited by Youth Music and Association of British Orchestras to run a pilot music cluster developing models of practice for use in Early Years Music Settings.

In 2009, they were invited to develop two further nationally significant projects by Youth Music. SoundStorm has also been invited to give presentations at a diverse range of conferences, including the National Association of Music Educators and MODAL.

SoundStorm has an impressive roster of achievements in its seven year history. Its activities have involved some 150,000 participants and 400,000 audience members. Every school in the Bournemouth/Poole conurbation has participated in, or hosted, SoundStorm projects, plus a number of school in Dorset.

SoundStorm is currently developing the Music Strategy and the Local Authority Music Plan for the conurbation. Projects have been developed with Education and Youth Services across the partner authorities; with the Children's Fund; with Youth Offending Team; with Early Years; with museums, libraries and arts development.

Partnerships

In its arts development role, excellent partnerships have been forged with many of the major venues and arts organisations in the South West region, including Lighthouse, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, WAVE – Arts Education Agency, Bournemouth International Centre, Activate, Inside Out, Arts Council England and many others.

SoundStorm has been key in developing the diversity of musical activities across the Bournemouth/Poole conurbation, being the driving force behind, amongst others, Bournemouth Modern Jazz Club, Club du Monde (World Music Club – Bournemouth), Safehouse Musicians Collective, Dragon of the South Chinese Lion Dance Club, and the Unsafe Improvised Music Festivals – all established since we were set up. We have hosted seven annual music development conferences at Lighthouse, to rave reviews, with artists of the calibre of Jason Rebello and Soweto Kinch leading sessions.

SoundStorm also acts as a consultant, promoter and producer. We have contributed to many of the regional festivals, and have often partner funded or programmed activities for them. We have led, or been partners, in a wide range of longer-term, larger-scale concerts, in venues including the Royal Albert Hall, Bournemouth International Centre and Lighthouse, Poole's Centre for the Arts.

As well as utilizing many locally based artists, SoundStorm has programmed education sessions open to the community with a wide range of nationally and internationally renowned artists, including Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Andy Sheppard, KOKORO, Osibisa, ZubopGambia, Soothsayers, Robin Jones' Kings Salsa, GrupoX, Jean Toussaint, Tim Berne, Karen Wimhurst, Michael Partington, John Harle, Apollo Sax Quartet, Dave O'Higgins, Tim Berne, Ensemble Bash and many others.

We have brought over outstanding music educators and musicians from South Africa and other nations to the UK for educational tours.

SoundStorm is currently in discussion with Lighthouse with a view to taking a more active role in programming its jazz and world music series in 2010.

Major projects for 2010

Aside from SoundStorm's rolling programme of music education activities and strategic activities, large-scale projects for 2010 include:

Stepping Stones : Early Years project, in partnership with Borough of Poole, Bournemouth, Youth Music, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Footprints of South Africa 2: featuring 250-strong "township choir" of local singers plus MBAWULA, Lucky Moyo and others, culminating in major concert at Lighthouse
These Shrinking Isles : an exchange project between Dorset and the outer Hebrides, commissioning coastal based musicians to compose pieces on the theme of climate change impact, and involving a wide range of unusual partners, including RSPB
Powerplay : a new Youth Music funded project across Bournemouth and Poole
Voces8 / Voces Cantabiles : choral creative project, featuring one of the hottest London-based young choirs undertaking regular visits to the South West
Resist! The Fall of the Wall : a brand new commission commemorating 21 years since 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, which will culminate in a modern concerto/opera involving professional and young performers premiering at Lighthouse in summer 2010. Shaftsbury-based composer Karen Wimhurst has been commissioned to develop this piece.