Hands and Voices present... The Good Old Days!

Hands & Voices is the group that brought you a Viking pantomime, an Elizabethan romp and a medieval pantomime quest, so its no surprise that for their 10 year anniversary production they have come up with something extra-special! So join us and step back in time to 'The Good Old Days'!

On Friday 30^th November & Saturday 1st December 7.30pm with a matinée performance on Saturday 1st at 2pm, Accessible Arts own inspirational Hands & Voices Choir will be presenting an exquisite extravaganza of magnificent musical meanderings at The National Centre for Early Music (for your delight and delectation of course)!

Jugglers and Magicians, Strongmen and Lion Tamers, Laurel and Hardy – prepare yourselves for a teaming torrent of tempting talent all brought to you by your own, your very own Hands and Voices (the first ever singing and signing choir)!

The focus of this year’s performance is to showcase the decidedly diverse and distinctly different talents of our choir members, ensuring that each member has the opportunity to take centre stage in the performance. As always, ‘The Good Old Days’ has been devised by the performers themselves, and will feature a unique multimedia blend of music, theatre, dance, live electronics and film, during which, absolutely anything can (and probably will) happen!

A seductively sonorous soundtrack has been devised by Cube Media's own SoundWeavers (professional musicians with learning difficulties), assisted by Dean St. John, Chris Bartram and members of Hands & Voices, with mind-boggling multimedia moments created by Andy Burns.

And on Friday 30^th November, for one night only, we are honoured to announce that Alan Hacker OBE, internationally acclaimed Clarinetist and Conductor, will be joining forces with the SoundWeavers in a proficient, praiseworthy and palpitation-raising performance. Alan has been a patron of Accessible Arts for 15 years now, providing support and encouragement throughout this time.

Tickets are on sale now (£7/£4) from the National Centre for Early Music Box Office on 01904 658 338 Email boxoffice@ncem.co.uk

If you wish to avoid the amateur attentions of our inexperienced and irritable knife-thrower (don’t say we didn’t warn you!) please come in costume best befitting The Good Old Days!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Pick & Mix sessions in October half tem!

Following on from the success of the first 'Pick & Mix' Music Taster Days, Cube Media is pleased to be able to offer three more Pick & Mix sessions!

Pick & Mix is an exciting new initiative for aspiring young musicians in North Yorkshire. The scheme is for 14-18 yr olds who are interested in working in music, and want to find out more about the different possibilities open to them.

Each Pick & Mix day consists of a number of taster workshops to show different ways musical skills can be used in a community and educational context. The taster sessions include:

• Using music technology in an accessible way
• Singing & Signing
• World Drumming
• Using Warm-ups & games

Following on from the Pick & Mix days, young people will have the opportunity to work with a mentor to continue their professional development. Mentoring sessions will take place January - March 2008.

In October Half Term, Pick & mix sessions will be running on the following dates:
Thursday 25th October 10 -5 Northallerton College
Friday 26th October 10-5 HYPeR, Harrogate
Saturday 27th October 10 - 5 The Melbourne Centre, York

Thanks to funding from Youth Music, we are able to offer these sessions completely free!

This is a chance not to be missed for all young people interested in taking their music further. Places are limited, so book early to avoid disappointment.

For more information, or to book onto any of the sessions, please call 01904 626 965 or email workshop@cubemedia.biz

This programme has been funded by Youth Music and is being run by Cube Media (North Yorkshire's foremost Community Media Centre) , in association with Tune in (The North Yorkshire Youth Music Action Zone) and Connecting Youth Culture/ 6k Vision (a project which supports Young Musicians and Bands in North Yorkshire)

Country and Western Night at the Melbourne

Howdy parters! There's a Country and Western night on at the Melbourne Centre, so ya'll better get yrselves over for a ho-down...the legendary Hands and Voices Singing and Signing Choir will be there as well as The Soundweavers...

Come listen to some songs, music and tall tales from the old West, then join us line dancing the night away! So slap on your best bib and tucker and get along (though Cowboy boots are optional).

It's all kicking off at 7.30pm (until 11pm) on Saturday 21st July at the Melbourne Centre, Escrick Street [op. Mecca Bingo). Tickets are £4/£2 conc.

For more information call 01904 626965.

The Melbourne Centre is a fully accessible venue. (* Cowboy boots are optional.)

Yippee Ki-yay, call the sherriff!!!!

Melbourne Filmmakers Summer Project

This years summer film and animation project is called Melbourne Film-makers and is focused on young people who used to attend the Melbourne Centre when it was the Melbourne Youth Club. Those young people, who now attend Space 109 and Fishergate Youth Club, will have to opportunity to take part in a project aimed at bringing together members of the local community.

The project will run as a series of 6 afternoon sessions over two weeks in August:
Wed. 8th, Thurs. 9th, Fri. 10th and Wed. 15th, Thurs. 16th, Fri. 17th from 1pm til 4pm.

The aim is promote elements of the local community and to convey the ideas and visions of the young people involved through video and animation. The fruits of the labour will then be viewable online from YouTube and via their very own blog [links will pop up here in due course].

In the case of the full allocation of places aren't taken up there is a reserve list for young people from outside the Fishergate/Walmgate area. Contact us if you'd like to book onto this; 01904 626965. Costs are £20 full/£10 conc.

myspace myspace myspace

In case we've never mentioned it before, Cube and Hands & Voice have lovely myspace sites now. If myspace is your thing become a friends and get all online networky with it...or something like that.

http://www.myspace.com/cubemediastudios
http://www.myspace.com/handsandvoices

A Haunting at the Treasurer’s House

On the evening of the 26th May, a strange happening took place in the Treasurer’s House - Ghostly sounds and music echoed through the halls, strange images appeared on the walls. You could have been fooled into thinking that you had stumbled upon a haunting, but no – this was a performance by Cube Media’s SoundWeavers as part of York Live 2007!

The SoundWeavers, a group of learning disabled musicians and trainee workshop leaders, have been working hard over the past few months to create an atmospheric retelling of some of York’s best-known ghost stories. Using accessible Music Technology, the SoundWeavers created sounds and music to make a unique soundtrack for the stories, which they performed live. In addition to this, the evening also had a unique interactive element, where audience members could interact with the performers by triggering additional sounds and images.

The evening was well attended, and after a shy start, everyone got stuck in and had a go at pressing some pads!

All in all, it was an eerie evening in a fantastic location, and was enjoyed by performers and audience alike! This performance was a first for the SoundWeavers, but they are hoping to more interactive performances in the future, so watch this space!

ecoDepot film online

Cube Media has just completed the first in a series of commissions for the City of York Council's new ecoDepot.

As an exemplar of sustainable construction and the largest timber-framed, straw-clad building in the whole of Europe, York is surely demonstrating that it really does take climate change seriously. Cube Media is proud to be working in partnership with Mojo Media on such an exciting breakthrough project for York.

Click here to visit the video page.

Pick and Mix session review

Pick & Mix Taster Day at Northallerton College March 07

Pick & Mix, an innovative new programme for aspiring young musicians, was launched on a high note at Northallerton College on Saturday 10th March. The scheme is being run as a collaboration between Cube Media (North Yorkshire’s foremost Community Media Centre), Tune – In (the North Yorkshire Youth Music Action Zone) & Connecting Youth Culture / 6K Vision (a music project aimed at developing the professional skills of young musicians living in North Yorkshire), to help young people develop the skills they need to become more employable within the music industry.

The taster day was led by music leaders from across the region, including a member of Cube Media’s SoundWeavers – a pioneering scheme which trains learning disabled musicians to be workshop leaders. The day provided ‘hands on’ experience for Northallerton’s young musicians, to gain an insight into a wide range of community music and music education activities, that exist in the music industry today.

Throughout the day an assortment of activities was made available to all participants including: warm ups and games, creating music with accessible music technology, using multi-media software, World Drumming and Singing and Signing. These activities were received enthusiastically and stimulated everyone’s imagination as to how they could be used in various settings within music industry.

All in all the taster day was deemed very successful and participants felt by the end of the day they had a better understanding of how the development of skills in the area of Community music and music education can open up an array of opportunities in the music industry. One of the participants had this to say:

‘I found the talk at the end about the reality about the music industry really interesting as it made me realise that there is a lot more that I can do with my music than just performing.’

Following from this taster day, many of the participants look forward to working closely with a mentor to continue their professional development.

If you missed this session, there will be more Pick and Mix days in venues across North Yorkshire.

Upcoming session:
The Glusburn Institure, Glusburn – Saturday 23rd June

If you are interested in booking onto a session or finding out more ring 01904 626965 or email workshop@cubemedia.biz

New Cube Blog/news page up and running

You may have noticed that the website has been a little neglected of late. It is through no fault of our own, we've had, er, technical issues with our server. Thankfully, all is now fixed and we're back...better than ever? Well, we've changed the news page so it operates a bit more regularly...more bran and all that...or something...

Ahem, anyway...bring on the news!