Budjerah, CLEWS' Lily Richardson and Taka Perry mentor at SongMakers 21-22 June.
This is SongMakers' first visit to Murrbumbidgee Regional High School.
Students will write and record new songs, as part of the statewide Make Music Day activities.
Some of Australia’s busiest songwriters and music producers are at Murrumbidgee Regional High School in Griffith, NSW, today and tomorrow for the SongMakers mentoring program. They will be teaching keen students how to write and record original pop songs as part of statewide Make Music Day 2021 activities.
Platinum-charting Sydney music producer and recording artist, Taka Perry; Lily Richardson, one-half of festival-favourite sister duo, CLEWS; and on-the-rise artist/songwriter, Budjerah, will give Murrumbidgee’s students a taste of the fast-paced and collaborative music industry as part of SongMakers' first visit to Murrumbidgee.
Taka Perry’s back story is particularly pertinent because the SongMakers program kick-started his music career. He took part as a student at his Canberra high school, where he was discovered by mentors Tom Busby of Busby Marou and producer Robert Conley, who signed Perry to his label.
The Murrumbidgee High workshop is being presented as a partnership between APRA AMCOS, the national music rights management organisation behind SongMakers; Create NSW; Office of Regional NSW and the NSW Department of Education.
Designed to forge closer links between schools and the Australian music industry, the SongMakers program also helps build students’ overall career-ready skills and particularly targets schools in regional areas where access to leading industry professionals can be limited.
Tina Broad, SongMakers Project Director, APRA AMCOS: “We’re delighted to be in this partnership with Create NSW, Department of Education and the Office of Regional NSW and can’t wait to work with all the young musos and their teachers at Murrumbidgee High. We’ve been doing most of our mentoring sessions over zoom because of COVID, so it’s going to be extra special for our mentors to get to collaborate with students face-to-face again.
The SongMakers program is all about collaboration because that’s what the global music industry is based on: just about every hit song has been written in a team process. By connecting Murrumbidgee High with these inspiring songwriters, music producers and recording artists, students will get to see the diversity of career and creative experiences out there and learn so much along the way about working to a deadline, respecting others’ ideas and pushing through challenges.
Because the program draws on most young people’s number one passion – music – it helps engage and inspire them, and that’s more important than ever in these unsettling times.”