Community project makes music from local areas.

for-wards is a hyper-local pilot music project. The project is a micro version of a larger ambition in creating new music inspired by Birmingham’s forty electoral wards.

Composer Bobbie-Jane Gardner was joined by a team of professional musicians, to lead a series of workshops focused on discovering sounds and other sonic material that represent three Birmingham neighbourhoods in three wards. These sounds and other input from the workshops are being used to write original musical compositions, and are to be performed in the communities where they originated.

This pilot project works with communities living in Sparkbrook, Aston and South Yardley.

Working with local people living in Balsall Heath, Newtown and Small Heath, composers Bobbie-Jane Gardner, Kirsty Devaney and Sebastiano Dessanay, wished to explore and capture the sounds people felt were unique and specific to their neighbourhood, and through this collaboration, opened up the initial stages of the compositional process and invited local communities to take part.

Film maker Rob Lainchbury (Laito) has created a short video which tells the story behind the journey to create this new music and reveals what sounds people feel represent where they live.

For details of performances, visit www.for-wards.co.uk/