Could you tell us about the new project at Star Studios?
I can remember a time, way back, in Belfast, when we had lots of groups playing here and they were all very good, all good at what they did, and they were able to get work. This is quite a long time ago.
Now we had all these great groups and they were very good musicians, but the only person who made it out of Belfast was, Van Morrison. And he made it because he was a songwriter. He wrote hit songs and he was able to sell his songs.
Ed Sheeran was here a little while ago and he was saying that he was just a busker but he also wrote songs and eventually he made an album and he did spectacularly well.
So I started to think about getting people, young people especially, into Star Studios so we could help them learn to write songs, or if they were already songwriters, we could record them and help them develop their talent.
You would like to help nurture young songwriters?
Yes, but not just that, I also thought it would be good to get the Ulster Orchestra involved, so I spoke to Brian McCarthy from the Ulster Orchestra and he said they would be happy to help. The idea is to work with the songwriters, record the songs and one person will get to have their song recorded with the Ulster Orchestra.
That sounds like a great opportunity?
The key thing for me is that we give over a space to help people develop. They get themselves over to Star Studios, we help them, help them write, help them learn an instrument and we will record their song. And it will be free. They don’t have to pay anything and we have musical instruments here that young people can use, we have a practise room that they can rehearse in, and we will help in whatever way we can.
It is only for songwriters?
Well that is the main thing at the moment, but we will also help people if they want to be scriptwriters, or they want to learn how to write plays. Even if they have already written something, we have connections with people who act, who do theatre shows, and who could come down and work on a play so that the writers could hear how their words sound when actors work with them.
We just want to help develop talent and we are open to anyone who wants to try something out but right now if you are a songwriter or you would like to learn how to write songs, come along to Star Studios and we will help you. After we record the songs, around November time we will select a song to be backed up by the Ulster Orchestra.
You can contact Star Studios at the link below
