AAH's 'Beat of the Community' Article
We were thrilled be featured in the July edition of Horsham’s AAH Magazine. Prompted by QM’s anticipated formal recognition as a charity, the AAH Magazine’s editor Ben Morris and photographer Toby Philips came to visit QM Studios to learn about its history, the community activities that have been happening at the studio and the aspirations for the future.
The article focussed on a number of achievements and activities including:
The production of a Charity Jazz CD – Adam Cresswell, recorded a trad jazz double CD at QM, engineered by our work experience students. With over 300 hundred copies sold it is anticipated to raise £2000 this year in aid of the Marie Curie Cancer Trust. If you would like to do something similar we'd be very interested to hear from you - please get in touch!
Work Experience Opportunities – Joe Hewings, Music Tech degree student at Northbrook College helps out at QM Studios every Thursday to bring his expertise to QM's outreach work. It gives him the opportunity to put theory into practice in a wide variety of recording situations, such as recording Alan Cresswell's professional jazz band, to school choirs and supporting music tech days for adults with learning difficulties. It provides him with an invaluable insight into the reality of maintaining and running a busy recording and rehearsal studio. If you would be interested in getting involved too then we'd love to hear from you.
Our partnership with Richmond Fellowship – local talented musicians such as beat boxer Dom McMahon aka ‘Krysal Gob’ and Rob Adams aka 'Rezzo Bob', who have both been attending QM’s Thursday sessions for the last 4 years through our links with the Richmond Fellowship.
Our collaboration with the Music Industries Association, who are a nationally charity based in Horsham who kindly donate some great electronic music equipment to us. This equipment gets put to good use in our fully inclusive music tech workshops and will help groups like the Springboard Project and Richmond Fellowship access music making projects at the studio.
The full article (available here) really illustrates how far QM has come since its formation almost 20 years ago. Mandy Ansell, QM’s General Manager is proud of the impact the studio has had on the local music scene since then – not least because Mandy’s late husband Graham, a sound engineer involved in the local music scene, played a pivotal role in setting QM Studios up. QM Studios has been booked out every night since then and is a valued community asset for local musicians. But its role has grown and is set to develop further as it gains charitable status and aims to make music making, recording and learning, fun and accessible to all.
QM’s outreach work is led by Adam Gellibrand, (Community Musician, Boom Tribe Director and kit drummer) and Kay Whiteley, (Workshop Facilitator, BDS Samba Leader and vocalist) who are excited about developing and diversifying its outreach activities with different community groups in the area…. Watch this space for more information!
If you are a local community group, and have an idea for a project that QMS could work together with you on, or an event you would like Adam and Kay to be involved in, then please contact us at info@qmstudios.co.uk.
