THE SOUND OF THE STREETS – GETTING INVOLVED
29th Sept – 1st Oct | FREE
Taunton – Goodland Gardens and around the town
The Sound of the Streets is a festival of street music, coming to Taunton at the end of September. As well as presenting some of the UK’s top street bands, the festival is full of opportunities for people, including children and young people, to get involved and join in.
At the festival’s heart are ideas of participation and musical joy. There will be a workshop for families with young children on the morning of September 30th, which will include headdress and costume making, playing percussion and body percussion and playing kazoos. The workshop will culminate in a colourful procession to start the day’s music!
Later in the day there will be a body percussion workshop by one of the country’s leading percussionists, Ollie Tunmer. Ollie was in the famous show Stomp and now leads The Beat Goes On, running body percussion sessions all over the world. This is a great chance for everyone to make music, no instruments needed. Ollie will also be joining in with Tongues of Fire, to get people joining in with the band’s wild rhythms.
On the Sunday, there will be a big festival band workshop in the morning for all local musicians to join in. Then in the afternoon, The Big Sing invites people to come and sing some great songs together. The session will be led by local musical legend Chris Grabham who will lead people through songs like Stand by Me, With a Little Help from my Friends and many more.
The Sound of the Streets is a charity that promotes street bands and street music and supports young people to play this inspiring music. They have a local youth band called The Sound Invaders (open to all young musicians), run Primary School bands and lead education projects. The group’s artistic director is local musician Tim Hill, a veteran of the UK’s street band scene.
Tim says: “This music is all about musical joy, coming together and celebrating ourselves. It is a music for everyone and full of ways to join in, play, dance and sing”.
The festival features both leading UK bands and local groups. These include the award winning and theatrical Perhaps Contraption, Bristol’s very pink Ambling Band, Cardiff’s brass Massive Wonderbrass, Bristol samba collective Ilu Axé and the funky street sounds of the Brass Junkies.