Local Musician Collaborating with College Students

Today, acoustic singer songwriter Stuart O’Connor played a variety of original songs for the level 2 & 3 Media students at the College.

Two sets of performances throughout the day were followed by Q&A sessions, with students asking Stuart what his inspirations are and the meaning behind a lot of his eclectic music.

The performances were, however, not just for entertainment purposes. All students have been set an on-going unique project to create, direct and edit music videos to the material taken from Stuart’s new 44 track album “Go Forth Bright Scenic”.

The collaboration came after Mark Garvey, Coordinator for Media, contacted Stuart to see whether his students could make the videos for his upcoming album. Mark and Stuart had worked together previously when Mark used to be the Media Manager for Stuart, Mark commented: “Today is part of a much larger project that the students have undertaken, they will be creating 6 minute videos to one of Stuart’s pieces and the edited versions will be revealed at a special screening before the Christmas break.

“We envision an array of video interpretations as Stuart’s music is very diverse and emotional, it’ll be exciting for us and Stuart to see how the students represent his music.”

Bradley Page, Media student, commented: “We’ve been studying Stuart in class for a while and hearing him live today has helped us to foresee how we will create these videos, plus he just sounds great live.

“Before Stuart even came in today we had researched into his life and works and tried to find out what inspires him, so the Q&A session helped us get to what makes him tick. For some it has given a new idea on the videos to produce and for others it has confirmed the route we were going down is the right one.”

More information on the video screening will follow.