Review of 2019

As the decade comes to a close, we’ve taken some time review some of our 2019 highlights to celebrate our student achievements. Plus we’ve created the obligatory ‘best 9!’.

Personal Goals

This last year, we have continued working closely with students to help them achieve their own personal goals. As well as all of the ‘business as usual’ activity of developing vocalists and musicians, we’ve waved off students to some very high profile colleges for both music and musical theatre including; The BRIT School, Performers and Access Creative. We coached many West End auditions with success in shows including Annie, Tina the Musical and Nativity. We’ve also seen some great personal achievements, with students overcoming their fears to perform solo for the first time, perform for the first time ever and some have gone on to perform on ever larger platforms.

Songwriting

Our Songwriting School joined forces with local organisations SOSLAM and Southend YMCA, to curate a regular event for young musicians called ‘Southend Rising’. The students hosted two successful events at The Railway Hotel and Caddies, with more to come in 2020. Below is a montage of highlights from the first event:

Choir

The Equal People Choir performed for the very first time in the summer, as part of a showcase for all Essex Vocal Coaching students. Then went on to host their own Christmas concert. The real story here is that these events have raised over £800 for the charity Equal People Performing Arts, which will go towards helping to further develop the building in Rayleigh, with the aim of creating a safe and inclusive space so everyone can enjoy being part of the arts.

Performance

We created performance opportunities for students of all abilities and age groups, ensuring the skills they are learning in lessons are being taken to an audience. This is helping to build confidence to go on to perform on larger platforms for some students.

2020

2020 will be more of the same with some new initiatives thrown in for good measure; we have already launched our new adult songwriting course, the first cohort for which sold out in a two weeks. The next date for our regular showcase for 1:1 students is on the 9th February, with preparation for this already under way, plus we have some exciting announcements coming soon into the new year.

In the meantime, we hope everyone has a happy, healthy 2020 and we’ll see you on the other side!