Studio-Live: training and expansion II

2013 closes as a fantastic year for Studio-Live. We hope the next year is even better!

​September 2013 – A second Studio Live workshop in sound recording concluded on Sept 18 with a showcasing of music tracks recorded and mixed by our fabulous technical team being trained in the Saharawi refugee camps, near Tindouf in SW Algeria.  The music was played through the PA Stagepas 660i  newly acquired by Sandblast for the project. Our founding director, Danielle, who had arrived a few days earlier, was there to hand out certificates to the six students (3 boys and 3 girls) after completing the intensive 12-day training period with Sara McGuinness. Numerous musicians also collaborated during the workshop to take advantage of the opportunity to be professionally recorded and give a chance for the students to do practical exercises in how to run a recording session. The workshop was set up this time in the headquarters of the Saharawi youth organisation, known by its acronym the UJSARIO, in the camp of Boujdour. This has been possible thanks to the official invitation and facilitation offered by female governor Ezza Brahim to hold the Studio-Live workshop in her newly established camp.

Sara with students

Students having a go

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September-November 2013: The Studio-Live team and their new centre.

Studio-Live has reached two fantastic achievements this fall!

First, the hard-working and dynamic technical team has started working independently, organising their own music sessions and practising daily with the Sandblast-donated equipment. Supervised by Studio-Live’s field coordinator Violeta Ruano, who spent the three months living in the refugee camps, and Sandblast’s director Danielle Smith, who travelled there twice throughout that period, the group has been organising weekly team meetings to coordinate three rehearsals and recording sessions per week with local young musicians from the three dairas(neighbourhoods) that compose the wilaya of Boujdour (27 February, Lemsid and Agdi). They have also organised other sessions with a range of supporting musicians who are very interested in becoming professional.

​Second, Sandblast has managed to secure a fixed home for the project in the very centre of Boujdour. Situated in the middle of the wilaya, between the governor’s office and the Internet point, the Studio-Live Centre for Recording and Professional Development of Saharawi Music is a spacious room, divided into a patio, a kitchen-leisure area, a big space with a stage and a storage. Since its official public presentation (attended by the Saharawi president himself!), the centre has been run collectively by all the students, attracting many musicians to practice and record there. The include the all-female group of the daira of Agdi, composer and guitarist Mahmud Bara, young singer Lmarabet Mahfud, bass player Selma and young guitarist Suleiman Mohamed Ahmed.

​The central location of the centre is not only very convenient for the students, but it is also extremely accessible both for the foreigners, such as NGO workers, and the different Saharawi personalities who make regular visits to local institutions. This helps us keep raising the profile of the project in the camps, have opportunities to network and make new friends.