Week beginning 14th January 2014

Portland Rocks started again this week so time to get the tuck shop up and running again. Stock is a bit depleted but we have recruited a volunteer who has kindly offered to collect stock from a local wholesalers once the young people have identified what is selling well. Most conversations seem to revolve around Maoams at the moment! I plan to meet with the SEQ students next week so we can start to write up the paper work. The trouble with working with motivated musicians is getting them in one place. Four of the group have been helping our dance dept. at IPACA with their production of Fame Junior providing some live music in a show performed to backing tracks.

So what does a Portland Rocks session look like, well before Christmas I gave our young people a couple of cameras and told them to video a workshop session how they see it which I have since edited into a short film. This was a sharing session where the various groups play to each other.  Young people run their own rehearsals and pretty much all the material you here including the jazz numbers are originals. Lighting in the venue isn't great so it is a bit grainy but this is very much Portland Rocks in the raw!!!!

If you are wondering who I am, I'm the keyboard player in the jazz group, my main instruments are actually clarinet and piano. This group usually have a saxophonist but she was absent that night. They managed to film me looking suitably grumpy!