Ahead of their gig at the Rich Mix on Saturday 31st October, vinspired volunteer Errol had a chat with Grand Union founder Tony Haynes ...
25 years later, Grand Union’s legacy still lives on. How as a group do you try to stay relevant?
“The things we talk about are universal. In a sense, growing and progressing in our own way. The other thing is always introducing new musicians so there are several generations now – the oldest musician is a steel pan player who is now in his seventies, but the youngest regular professionals are about 19 or 20. About three years ago, in order to make sure there was a legacy, a strong tradition of young musicians coming through, we set up the youth orchestra of East London so the principles can be passed on to them. We now have a whole range of people coming in from around 10 years old who have the potential to be very good. Obviously, you have to learn how to present music to a younger audience, and the best way is to listen to them.”
How has Grand Union Youth Orchestra’s introduction in 2007 changed your music’s target audience and/or age range of listeners?
“What’s strange is that we have always appealed enormously to younger people who are very impressed by what they hear, because it is very unusual. As the time passes, there seems to be less exposure to live, acoustic music making, so they are amazed by the combinations of musical instruments that they’ve never heard or certainly may not have seen before. The difficulty is getting them along as audiences because what we do is not seen as ‘fashionable’ music, in the sense that it’s not like rap or hip-hop – it instead continues an old tradition of acoustic music-making. So, to go back to your other question, I would say it is relevant but the difficulty is trying to convince people that it is relevant. We do a lot of workshops with young people, especially in schools, and I think having the younger musicians beginning to take part in the team is very helpful in the process because they relate to their own generation and at the same time, are part of Grand Union. It’s almost as if they are ambassadors.”
Prior to your Rich Mix performance, Grand Union is hosting a workshop for young kids and their families. How important do you reckon it is that world music is included in education?
“I think it is very, very important. But on the other hand, it is acknowledged on the music curriculum and people do study world music. The problem is that the establishment is very conservative and very few real African, Caribbean, South American, Indian or Chinese musicians are there to deliver and demonstrate their music. So, whilst it is a good idea that world music should be taught and explored, there is little effort to allow the authentic musicians to actually work with children and young people.”
How else does Grand Union try to target a young audience?
“Participation is an extension of the workshop. Most of the workshops we do are done with a view to engaging people in the performance. A few months ago, we did one of our big shows at the Hackney Empire where there were 150 or more young performers from across East London involved in that. It’s getting them involved and actually playing not just doing normal workshops and teaching them that way. The other thing is trying to find ways of reaching them through social networking sites, such as the MySpace. One of the things we’re doing now is bringing together a lot of the young people, who work with or for us, not just musicians but filmmakers and so on, to specifically establish a youth angle towards what Grand Union does.”
