As Jam Around The Table wraps up for 2022, Natasha Cowie talks us through the creative process which led to another successful year of jamming!

Jam Around The Table’s second year started off with a bang. With familiar faces and a fair few new ones, we had a great week of creation and collaboration. Jam Around The Table is a project about getting back to basics – good music, good company and a good chat around a table.

The week started with writing a group song, which was a great opportunity for the young people to  get to know each other and start collaborating. The range of skills in the group was evident, with singers, musicians and rappers coming together to create a great piece called ‘Crossfire’.

The participants then used discussions about mental health as prompts for writing their own personal monologues, which they put to music and performed at the end of the week. It was so wonderful to see the natural collaboration that grew out of the sessions, with older participants mentoring younger ones and participants who had never met before the week creating wonderful pieces in a few hours.

The workshop was led by Creative Associates Stella Litras and Leah Francis. Leah led the way on helping the young people to write lyrics, while Stella encouraged them put it to music. Beulah Byron provided wonderful pastoral care, and we were lucky to have Creative Associate Cleve Freckleton with us on the last day to provide professional feedback on the group’s creations. The young people had very positive words to say about all staff involved and we would like to thank them for all their hard work.

On the last day the participants had a sharing session where they performed the songs and monologues they had formed through the week as well as the group song. It was a great opportunity to build confidence and share the excellent work they had come up with in a safe and nurturing space. We could see the group’s skills building through the week, and it was brilliant to see how the workshop fuelled their interest in the arts and open up the possibilities of how they could pursue it further.

Jam Around The Table will be back again in February half term. To register your interest, sign up here!

We were able to deliver Jam Around The Table thanks to our partners and supporters.