UWL Clearing music student gets work experience with Stormzy
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I came here through Clearing for my undergraduate degree and actually graduated with first class honours. I've got phenomenal friends and I've learned so much; there's nothing like being in London for music, it is like nowhere else.”
Megan Heather Russell, MMus Composition
Article body
London College of Music (LCM) MMus Composition student Megan Heather Russell was chosen to help with the arrangements for the final performance of the BBC Radio 2’s Piano Room series featuring Stormzy and guest vocalist Debbie, via a mentoring scheme for early career musicians and composers.
Masters student Megan says,
My Course Leader Simone Spagnolo was contacted by the BBC and put me forward and I was so excited to be chosen because I was up against people from schools like Guildhall and Birmingham Conservatoire.”
Megan was mentored by Martin Williams, the BBC Concert Orchestra’s arranger.
He takes existing music and rearranges it — changing the parts, the structure and writing things for new instruments. I was there tidying things up or doing transcripts of music for him. I was stood next to Martin as he marked his score during the rehearsal on Saturday and then the next day everything ran really smoothly for the performance because we'd done all that work,”
she explains.
Megan may be a classical composer, but she was delighted to be working with Stormzy and impressed by his down-to-earth behaviour, which made recording a relaxed experience. She recalls:
He's so important in terms of his activism and really nice too. He came in wearing Crocs and had the football on while we finished rehearsing, which I think was perfect.”
While Megan’s main love is composition, she believes being an interdisciplinary musician is very important:
You've got to be able to do everything, so I'm trying to get as much experience as I can.”
Clearing
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