Making Tracks Intern and musician Thomas Meadley introduces some of Bristol's rising stars, in this Making Tracks Showcase. The Making Tracks programme is brought to you by Trinity, ACE and Basement Studio.

This is brought to you by Trinity Presents. Click here to see more arts, community, well-being and education content or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Trinity are working with external artists, partners and organisations as part of Trinity Presents Online to provide exciting content, relevant to Trinity's diverse audiences and in line with our Equal Opportunities and Free Speech Policies. Click here for more information about our Policies. While we endeavour to ensure content we share is relevant and appropriate, Trinity is not responsible for individual content created by third parties.

In the Summer the garden welcomed local children and families for activity days. Photo @Paul Blakemore

Local children, including Tate, received activity packs during Lockdown. Photo via Twitter courtesy of Tate's Mum

"@HannahMorePri huge thanks to you and @TrinityBristol for the fantastic kit for the windowsill grow challenge! Tate really enjoyed potting them. We will keep you posted on their growth" Charlene L. Twitter

Since the Covid-19 lockdown, we have been working closely with local primary schools and Up Our Street to find ways to reach out to young people in the community who can no longer access our community garden and may have limited access to green spaces during this time.

The first batch of activity packs, filled with simple DIY windowsill gardening ideas and craft activities for families, children and carers to get busy with at home, went out in May/June 2020. Activities include sowing seeds, making bird feeders, scavenger hunts and more. A digital version of the pack is downloadable from our website.

“I think the biggest benefit is that it gives children and families who might not be able to get outside, the chance to engage in nature-based activities. Being around nature and doing tasks like planting and looking after plants are great for mental health and well-being and get children engaged in the world around them!”

Natalie Barker, Deputy Head, St Nicholas of Toletine Primary, June 2020

The garden team are also creating videos on everything from handy gardening tips to fun activities you can do at home - keep up-to-date with these on our social media channels or catch up here.

Making Tracks tutor, Oli Cocup, shows how to practise your drum skills without using a drum kit.

This is brought to you by Trinity Presents. Click here to see more arts, community, well-being and education content or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Trinity are working with external artists, partners and organisations as part of Trinity Presents Online to provide exciting content, relevant to Trinity's diverse audiences and in line with our Equal Opportunities and Free Speech Policies. Click here for more information about our Policies. While we endeavour to ensure content we share is relevant and appropriate, Trinity is not responsible for individual content created by third parties.

Our Making Tracks Music programme Intern, Thomas Meadley, recently had a training session with Podcasting and Digital Producing expert Heather Campbell, ahead of the launch of our very own Making Tracks podcast. Watch this space for more news on that! 

We asked Heather to share her top tips for creating your own podcast and here it is! 

Heather has worked for the BBC and ITV developing and creating content for clients such as The Mercury Prize. You can check out the podcast and some brilliant content she has created here https://www.instagram.com/neverseentheoc/ 

Thanks to our Making Tracks programme funders Youth Music for enabling us to create this brilliant top tips video.

This is brought to you by Trinity Presents. Click here to see more arts, community, well-being and education content or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Trinity are working with external artists, partners and organisations as part of Trinity Presents Online to provide exciting content, relevant to Trinity's diverse audiences and in line with our Equal Opportunities and Free Speech Policies. Click here for more information about our Policies. While we endeavour to ensure content we share is relevant and appropriate, Trinity is not responsible for individual content created by third parties.

Before the lockdown a student takes part in a piano lesson in Trinity's music studios. Photo @ KoLAB Studios

When lockdown restrictions were announced Trinity's Music Team worked to move Making Tracks activity online.

So now instead of sessions in our building, young people meet with Tutors online for weekly music making sessions.

Since Mar 16, the team have worked with over 15 young people delivering music production workshops in: vocal tuition, guitar and bass tuition, songwriting, music production and skill sharing sessions. Tutors have also been creating online content, including short videos in industry skills and improving musical abilities. Emerging musicians from Making Tracks including Sam Neal have provided soundtracks.

"It's a lifeline. He loves it. It's really good for his mental health and autism to have these sessions scheduled during this time. It's really, really helping. Thank you so much'.

Parent of a Trinity Making Tracks young person

Partners ACE and Basement Studios continue to provide provisions, including checking in with young people online and providing workshops and bespoke masterclasses.

Trinity have hosted a virtual 3rd Space meeting, where organisations who provide music services for young people across Bristol come together and talk about ideas.

Making Tracks team members have also joined Youth Music’s online sessions; learning from and inputting to the wider sector transition to online working, safeguarding and working with young people who might not have access to equipment.

Making Tracks is supported by Youth Music and using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, as well as support from match funders.

Pete teaches Drum, Piano and Live Performance on Making Tracks - our life changing Music Making Project with Basement Studios and Aspiration Creation Elevation C.I.C.

From his home, he has recorded this short video explaining piano triads and how to play Otis Redding's 'Lean On Me'.

Making Tracks is supported by Youth Music and using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, as well as support from match funders.

This is brought to you by Trinity Presents. Click here to see more arts, community, well-being and education content or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Trinity are working with external artists, partners and organisations as part of Trinity Presents Online to provide exciting content, relevant to Trinity's diverse audiences and in line with our Equal Opportunities and Free Speech Policies. Click here for more information about our Policies. While we endeavour to ensure content we share is relevant and appropriate, Trinity is not responsible for individual content created by third parties.

Making Tracks Tutor Pete is a drummer, keyboard and piano, backing vocalist and percussion player who has industry skills and experience in live performance, touring, street performance, studio work, event promotion, sound engineering, stage coordination, festival booking and organisation.

Pete plays in Bristol based Hip Hop outfit Almatic, as well as hot jazz and swing band the Gin Bowlers, and Bluegrass and Country band Feral Mouth. As well as multi tasking the management of several projects including running a rehearsal studio, providing PA and backline to events around Bristol and Norfolk, he teaches drums from his studio in Bristol.

We're really missing our regular community events, so while the building is closed we have asked some of the groups and classes to tell us about their activities, who takes part in their classes and some of the great things they have achieved so far.

Rachel James from The Original Spinners kindly sent us a lovely little video about Dance For Parkinson's.

The class is for people with Parkinson's, partners and carers and is all about creativity, fun, and an excellent playlist.

Rachel shares some of their highlights from gentle exercises to performances at Bristol Harbour Festival.

You can see more #TrinityPresents videos alongside activities to take part in, live streams and much more by making sure you like and follow our page.

This is brought to you by Trinity Presents. Click here to see more arts, community, well-being and education content or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Trinity are working with external artists, partners and organisations as part of Trinity Presents Online to provide exciting content, relevant to Trinity's diverse audiences and in line with our Equal Opportunities and Free Speech Policies. Click here for more information about our Policies. While we endeavour to ensure content we share is relevant and appropriate, Trinity is not responsible for individual content created by third parties.

We asked two of our tutors, Bethany Stenning and Oliver Cocup, for their top tips on self-releasing your music.

Here at Trinity, all the music tutors who work with the young people who take part in Making Tracks programme (teaching music to young people) are also professional musicians working in the industry.

If you have any questions, or want to know more about Making Tracks, get in touch with our Making Tracks Music Tutors at info@trinitybristol.org.uk

This is brought to you by Trinity Presents. Click here to see more arts, community, well-being and education content or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Trinity are working with external artists, partners and organisations as part of Trinity Presents Online to provide exciting content, relevant to Trinity's diverse audiences and in line with our Equal Opportunities and Free Speech Policies. Click here for more information about our Policies. While we endeavour to ensure content we share is relevant and appropriate, Trinity is not responsible for individual content created by third parties.

Spend an hour with funny man Conor A, as he takes us through the trials and tribulations of learning how to get better at not getting better whilst living with Fibromyalgia.

This show was pre-recorded at Home in Manchester as part of their PUSH Festival. Thanks to Conor A and Hannah Woods for making this livestream possible.

Thanks to all our Digital Partners also live streaming tonight Disability Arts Online, I'm Here, Where Are You?, Cambridge Junction, Fibromyalgia Action UK - FMAUK, The Disabled People's Channel & Morecambe Fringe.

You can find out more about Theatre, Dance and Performance at Trinity here.

This is brought to you by Trinity Presents. Click here to see more arts, community, well-being and education content or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Trinity are working with external artists, partners and organisations as part of Trinity Presents Online to provide exciting content, relevant to Trinity's diverse audiences and in line with our Equal Opportunities and Free Speech Policies. Click here for more information about our Policies. While we endeavour to ensure content we share is relevant and appropriate, Trinity is not responsible for individual content created by third parties.

Sound on for this film of Let Us Dance....

Back last year we teamed up with Arnolfini and young female dancers to takeover institutional spaces. Running alongside the ‘Still I Rise’ exhibition, a large scale exhibition that documented women’s experiences and acts of resistance in the last 150 years, Let Us Dance invited young dancers from across the city to take over a space with Flash Mob style dances.

We will be continuing to programme dance activity throughout 2020 as part of the #MovingBristol Dance Hubs project. Keep an eye out on our website for activity you can get involved in, including Dance Classes for Women who have experienced or currently experiencing cancer.

Since graduating from Southampton University in 2017 with a 1st in BA Music, Making Tracks Tutor Bethany has been a working professional multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, and the creative director/song-writer of her own artistic project, STANLÆY.

"I like to teach practical music making, and experimentation"

Bethany is an avid producer, producing and recording nearly all of her own music and videos, and is keen to inspire other young women to get into producing their own music. She has toured the UK with her band, and played festivals such as Glastonbury, Boomtown, and Shambala.

Her latest solo EP has recently been featured on BBC radio 6. She is currently working on her next new full length album. Bethany has been working professionally as a teacher since graduating, at schools, with trinity, and as a private tutor (she also teaches piano, viola, violin, guitar, harp and vocals.)

She is an advocate of young people finding their own voice (be it vocally, instrumentally or in musical production) and offers an informed but creative space for young people to explore this in.

Rise Youth Dance take part in a workshop with Uchenna Dance at Trinity as part of IGNiTE. Photo @ KoLAB Studios.

Arts Council England have awarded a grant to Bristol Dance Futures - a consortia of South West arts organisations and practitioners - to develop the city’s dance offer. The group is working together to grow investment in dance, and includes Mel Scaffold (Theatre Bristol), Rhiannon Jones (Trinity Community Arts), Kieran Swann (Arnolfini), Nic Young (Circomedia), Helen Cole (In Between Time) and independents Laïla Diallo, Katy Noakes and Lauren Scholey.

The partnership is pleased to announce Deborah Baddoo has joined the project as Producer to lead this development and develop Bristol’s regional and national profile as home for dance. Deborah is a performer and choreographer, also artistic director of State of Emergency productions - a performance and production company supporting the development of Black dance, choreography and performing arts nationally and internationally. In 2010 she was awarded an MBE for services to British dance. Talking of her appointment as project lead, Deborah said:

“I am delighted to take up the position of Producer with Bristol Dance Futures and to help to develop the impact of dance in the exciting city of Bristol. As an experienced producer in dance working nationally, but based in the South West, I have been aware of the breadth and quality of dance in Bristol for many years and of all the hard work that has gone before in order to reach the point we are at now. Dance in Bristol is now at a pivotal point and I embrace the challenge of working with Bristol Dance Futures Steering Committee to raise the profile of dance in Bristol and to deliver the exciting Moving Bristol dance programme” Deborah Baddoo

Mel Scaffold, CEO of Theatre Bristol who helped to launch the project said, “It is a joy to announce that we are working with Deborah Baddoo to deliver this exciting project. The city is home to a huge community of talented dancers, along with thousands of people who watch and take part in dance every year. Moving Bristol will build on the passion and commitment of these communities, and the organisations who nurture them, with the aim of creating a city where every body can move and be moved by dance.”

Through a two-year funded project, the partners will work together to develop a wide range of dance activity across Bristol. This will include the announcement of three focused Dance Hubs to support Dance & Health, Young People and Audience. There will also be opportunities for dancers to take on residencies in a range of cross-sector settings in 2020-2022.

Watch this space or get in touch with Deborah Baddoo on: dancefutures@theatrebristol.net for more information

Photo @ Khali Ackford / KoLAB Studios

Max is a young man who has been coming to Trinity off and on for the past year. He started playing the drums at the age of 12 but in recent years had no access to a drum-kit so stopped playing.

Making Tracks has provided Max with weekly lessons, teaching him the rudiments of drumming for the first time and creating opportunities for him to realise songs he had written in his head for years.

“I've never really had the facilities and encouragement to do this before, but I'm making these steps, and although they're not speedy they’re at a pace that I’m comfortable with and I'm really enjoying the journey.” Max

During the course of the year Max has found it easier to retain musical information, and both his confidence and musical ability have improved significantly.

He shows great insight into the value of projects like Making Tracks and the benefits they offer to young people like him who may suffer from anxiety or self-doubt and therefore not push themselves forward: “I think it's important that that's what these places do, they try to encourage people who aren't fully out of their shells or fully know what they want to do, to explore things and just have fun with it, because it shouldn't be a stressful thing, not knowing what you want to do.”

Photo Alexa Ledecky

Photo Alexa Ledecky

Trinity has been selected to be one of 40 community arts centres to take part in Here and Now, a national and local celebration of culture within communities running alongside the National Lottery’s 25 year anniversary.

Photo @ KoLAB Studios

“I just learned to channel my anger, emotions, my energy in a good way, so I could create something I could be proud of... I'm just going to keep following that path of love, loving what I do and loving how I do it and just see where it gets me, coz that’s all I can do.” Miss Tee

Tenisha is a young single parent whose situation has turned around over the last two years with support from Trinity.

From being someone with very little confidence who described herself as ‘a negative person’ Tenisha has used her involvement with Making Tracks to develop a positive approach to life, both personally and professionally.

Her lyric writing, singing, microphone use and music production skills have improved significantly. She has become increasingly independent and her confidence has blossomed, evidenced in her three live performances in front of large crowds this year.

“They (Trinity) showed me I could do more with my music, that I am my music, and to embrace my music. They made me understand that context, and the confidence helped me build it too... It’s a big step for me, and it’s scary too, but they've helped me every step of the way and I'm so grateful... It’s made me more independent and that is making me overcome a lot of other fears. The whole coming out of my shell, being who I really want to be, and doing what I love...”

Tenisha has developed a strong musical relationship with Trinity staff who have challenged and supported her in a way that has encouraged her growth, personally and musically, her self-discipline and self-belief.

Having now joined PRS as an artist in her own right Tenisha’s next steps include producing an EP of original music and releasing it across multiple platforms. She’s also keen to mentor other young people, pushing them forward in a way she feels she was never pushed until now.

“Overall we're incredibly pleased with her. I'm really happy for her because it's going to keep going, it’s not the top of the hill yet, so she will stay involved.” Al Howard,Trinity staff member

Photo @ KoLAB Studios

Joan is a young women who has been home schooled. She struggles being around groups of young people but really enjoys the opportunity to play one to one with a music teacher. Joan now plays the bass and until her introduction to Making Tracks mainly played alone.

“Trinity as a whole seems to be a safe space for Joan. She seems quite nervous when I've seen her mix with people outside, but when she is mixing with people inside Trinity she's really open. So I think it's important for her to have a space like that... it really seems to be benefiting her.” Bridget, Trinity music tutor

Having taken part in group sessions at both Basement Studios and ACE where she struggled in integrate with other young participants she was offered one to one bass lessons at Trinity.

“Even though I have a bass at home I like playing music with people, so it's given me an opportunity to play music with people, which then gives me more inspiration to play at home. I’ve definitely been taught a lot that I wouldn't have learned if I just played on my own. I've got a lot more confident with playing music and I feel like I understand my instrument more than I did before.”

Her experience at Trinity has marked a significant improvement in Joan’s musical ability, her confidence and her motivation.

When she started lessons she described herself as playing “only one song on one string of the bass” whereas now she has mastered “a whole playlist of songs”. She has developed a good relationship with her music tutor, who she feels understands her and responds well to her individual needs.

Making Tracks is supported by Youth Music and using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, as well as support from match funders.

@ Paul Blakemore

@ Paul Blakemore

@ Paul Blakemore

@ Paul Blakemore

Making Tracks is a life changing music making project delivered in partnership with Trinity and leading youth providers Basement Studio and ACE.

Making Tracks offers young people who are facing challenging circumstances the opportunity to access music making opportunities. Ranging from 121 music making sessions to opportunities to perform a city-wide festivals (Harbourside, St Paul’s Carnival) to Q&A’s with professional artists. Young people are able to receive support and training bespoke to their needs - so they can take the next step into their future.

"It was interesting to see all the other students performances and it shows how far you can get with Making Tracks. I was pleased to see vegan pizza provided and meet lots of friendly people too." Joan, 15

The end of year celebration event is an opportunity for young people, their parents, careers and friends to celebrate the achievements and hard work of everyone who has taken part in Making Tracks over the year.

Taking place in Trinity's main hall the evening included performances from some of the young people who take part in the project. Performers included Chloe Thorn (Basement Studio), Miss Tee (Trinity), Sam Neal (Trinity) and Tom Meadley (Trinity).

The celebration is also an opportunity to network/ meet others who take part in the Making Tracks project as well as other young people from across the city. We were delighted to welcome 15 young people from Hartcliffe who came along with their youth workers to experience more creative opportunities in the city, joining 60+ others for the evenings activities.

Community members who take part in activity at Trinity also had an opportunity to showcase their talents. Flash-mob style dance interventions came from some of the young women who took part in the Let Us Dance project and liver music was performed by members of WECIL Collective,  whose members attend regular group music sessions with tutors at Trinity.

Making Tracks is supported by Youth Music and using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, as well as support from match funders.

Hype perform on the Trinity stage at Harbourside Festival 2019. Photo Alastair Brookes

Young female street dancers will be taking over Arnolfini as part of the Trinity supported 'Let Us Dance' project that runs alongside Arnolfini's 'Still I Rise' exhibition.

Running in the gallery space every Sunday, until Dec 15, 'Let Us Dance' is a celebration of young women. Street dancing teenagers, enter the gallery space, dance to soundtracks from their mobile phones playing their choice of songs and then leave the space. This is a simple act of resistance, defiance and tremendous skill.

Trinity have been working with Bristol-based dance groups to invite young women aged 13-19 to get involved. Some of the groups taking part already have strong connections with Trinity; HYPE meet weekly at Trinity and are supported by Trinity's Community Kick Start initiative and Rise Youth Dance have performed their annual showcase at Trinity. Also performing are BS13 / Storm who took part in Trinity's Dances Stage at Bristol Harbourside Festival last July.

Head down to Arnolfini every Sunday between 1pm and 4pm and you might just catch one of the vibrant surprise performances of young women taking ownership of a space they are usually denied.

Let Us Dance is presented by Arnolfini, with the support of Trinity Centre.