College earns plaudits for Gigbeth role

SOUTH Birmingham College has been praised for its major part in the city’s leading music festival, Gigbeth. The college lent their auditorium as a venue for the festival, seeing such established artists as Bryn Christopher, Michael Seaton, The Destroyers and Musical Youth taking to their stage, amongst others.

When SBC get involved, they always go the whole hog and three ex-students from the college were also present during the festival to film Musical Youth on the campus for music channel VH1. In fact, they were so impressed by what they saw that the entire film crew expressed a desire to work with the college on a number of projects in the future.

Claire Tumelty, the venue’s Centre Manager, said South Birmingham College’s auditorium is gaining more and more renown among the UK’s music and media community as a performance and rehearsal space. She said: “Gigbeth was a fantastic event and I’d like to thank all the staff and students involved. The auditorium may be based at a college, but we run it as a professional venue.

“We have state-of-the-art equipment and our staff includes industry veterans, such as Live Sound Tutors Ian Grimbley and Nils Edstrom, who have worked on events like the Reading Festival, the Beijing Olympics and the Glastonbury Festival.”

Some highly-regarded performers have used the college’s facilities for rehearsals, including the BBC Big Band, Birmingham Opera and the Ex Cathedra choir. On top of that the college has hosted episodes of Question Time, a live Radio 1Xtra broadcast and numerous corporate events, fashion shows and arts performances.

The college prides itself on the strong links it has with music and media industries, including Island Records who many of its students already work with closely. Island Records and the college are also working together on a competition where students have to remix or storyboard a track from Ladyhawke, whose song My Delirium was a recent Record of the Week for Radio 1 DJ Sara Cox.

The college runs a wide range of courses, from the entry level BTEC First Diploma in Performing Arts to more advanced courses such as HNDs in Music and Media. For details on courses at South Birmingham College call admissions on 0121 694 5000 or email: admissions@sbc.ac.uk