You will know from previous blog posts that we currently have a group of young people completing a DJ/Employability Course here at Silx every Tuesday & Thursday afternoon and the course is ran by Wendy and Adam from The Sage Gateshead. As part of the course the young people are completing an Art’s Award which has various different modules, as part of this they had to go on a visit to The Sage and find out a bit more about how it is ran, what the different departments do and also get involved with some music while they were there!

On Thursday 21st May, Sarah (our progression worker) and the 8 young people completing the course met Wendy and Adam at the Sage and had a great afternoon there.

The day began with a tour of the Main Hall and the music rooms surrounding it- the young people found out that these rooms can be hired out by people working at or completing courses through the sage to learn and practice different musical instruments. The main hall was massive and very high! (Sarah actually admitted to being a little bit scared) the young people sat in the chairs, listened to music through the headphone sets that was playing on the big screen and watched the tech guy’s setting up the stage for an event taking place that evening…..

After the main hall the young people headed backstage where they needed to be very quiet as there was a media conference going on while they were there and the technical team back stage’s job is to ensure the music being played out and the coding for the presentation was correct- the young people got to watch this happening live, they explored the dressing rooms and were even shown into a private conference room where very important visitors/performers have lunch and were told the room can even be booked out for Weddings! (Amazing View out of the window of the Quayside) While they were back stage the young people had to complete some work that made up one of their Art’s Award Modules- This included looking for any Health & Safety signs and writing down what they were and how they worked- the young people explored the full back stage area looking a the fire doors, safety tape and extinguishers etc…. They also got the chance to meet Wendy & Adam’s boss and interviewed him to find out more about his role at The Sage, they were all very surprised at how friendly he was as they were expecting ‘THE BOSS’ to be scary…..

After being backstage the young people headed outside to take a look at the Graffiti Art Walls and explore the Arches. The Arches is where CoMusica are based at the Sage and they run different Arts & Music programmes including DJ/MC sessions which some of our young people took part in during their visit and even recorded a mix. The Young people were very impressed with the Graffiti Art and were happy to pose for some photos, even though at this point it was raining! (Yes, that is Sarah with her Scarf over her head)

Next is where the young people’s confidence was put to the test and we must say we are incredibly proud of them all… they were taken to the large admin floor which consisted of rows of desks and people working away (Adam, who works there himself even said he found the admin office a little bit scary) the young people had to buddy up with a member of staff and interview them about their role and find out all about The Sage’s equal opportunities policy- the young people didn’t know they were going to be doing this and took it in their stride and were fab, they all found someone to talk to and got all of the information required for their module- they did say they preferred being ‘thrown in at the deep end’ and learnt lots from the staff they spoke to, this even prompted some of young people to ask how they could possibly get work experience at The Sage in the future which is a very positive reaction!

The day finished off with some fun….. The young people were taken to one of the music rooms and learnt how to play the Steel Pan Drums, each person was given a role and a different drum and they learnt how to play a song as a band  (They even got Sarah involved!) This was brilliant, the young people worked together as a team and encouraged each other and they end result was incredible. After only an hour of practice the young people ‘performed’ their song to some of the staff from the Sage and they were really surprised to find out that they had only just began learning that day! The young people expressed how  much they enjoyed this part of the visit and it was really nice to see them all learning a new skill together!

It was a brilliant day and the young people got lot’s of information for their Art’s Award, they are all doing very well on this course, we will keep you updated on their progress 🙂