The Project
Jane Wheeler - Music Advisor
Linton Bennett - Album Producer
Completion of Project

The MSEL project, run by Lynk Reach in partnership with Newham LA, explores the history of musical traditions represented by Newham’s diverse communities and promoting their importance today. Several Newham secondary schools worked in conjunction with music industry professionals to write, perform and record heritage-inspired songs.

These performances included the Year 9 Songwriting Showcase, Share It and Bring It  (at the Royal Festival Hall and Stratford Circus as part of the Newham Arts Festival 2007). The project also involves Tomorrow’s Musicians Today. An education pack that includes a DVD and a CD of songs is being produced.

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"I was really pleased with the Musical Heritage emphasis on the song writing project this year. Within this project, we were able to broaden participation in after-school music/song writing workshops, and enable the students to really reflect on all the richness of their Musical Heritage here in Newham, exploring how even modern urban music has African, Indian and America Roots as well as English Folk roots. It's a reminder that we are all influenced by, and have influence on, each others' culture and style. The project got me thinking too! Thanks to Lynk Reach for making it possible. I hope we can work together again."

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‘Inspiring’, ‘Exhilarating’, Rewarding’ are just a few descriptions that I will use to describe this Musical Story of East London project involving Year 9 students! Producing the album started off with after-school workshops, designed to brain- storm and shape the basis of the tracks. With the involvement of a variety of accomplished songwriter workshop leaders, each young person was given the opportunity to express, through the medium of song, their hopes and fears for their community.

We then embarked upon the huge task of recording the vocals and keyboard parts to each and every song, thirty in total, over a period of a week. To put this into perspective, this meant the equivalent of documenting the vocal performances of 3 albums in a total of 25 hours! The texture of sounds was then introduced to the immense landscape of musical genre. This took place over 30 days - literally a day per song! Each young person involved had a very detailed and specific musical genre in place for their composition - be it reggae, hip hop, RnB, Folk…you name it, they envisaged it! Leaping from reggae to Balearic house beats and  hurtling from ear crunching rock guitars to smooth soul searching strings resulted in an exciting mixture.

The whole project was made possible by Lynk Reach, the joint efforts of the many artists and workshop leaders involved and the talented imagination of our young musicians Their dedication and professionalism was second to none and the results speak for themselves. Newham, indeed, has a pool of talent that can rival the best!

A pleasure and well done to all.

Go to Our Sporting Lives - Oylmpic Heritage Project

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Now We Are Talking! Stories My Elders Told Me (2005) | Our Sporting Lives - Oylmpic Heritage Project (2006) | Musical Story of East London (2007) | Commemorating 1807 (2007) | A Lifetime on Tiptoes (2008)