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| Mentor | Mentee |
|---|---|
| Brian Rielly | Rona Topez |
| Angela Cassidy Job | Laura Breaden |
| Andrew Dobbie | Karen McClusky |
| Tony Hamill | Ian Sides |
| Dave Boyd | Alex Sakulin |
| Lucy Butters | Matthew Todd |
| Louise Quinn | Georgia Smith |
| Katie Sutherland | Cami Ramsay |
| Jenny Flinn | Marianne Fraser |
| Colin Campbell | Gav Livingstone |
Mentee: Mathew Todd
I am a classical tenor and a community musician. I gradually built up my experience of community music by working for organisations such as ‘Givin’ it Laldie’ as well as lots of voluntary work. I have an HND in Music from Stevenson College Edinburgh and have just completed my Honours Degree in Vocal Studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. I give singing lessons and specialise in teaching (and encouraging) boys to sing. I also given lots of workshops for children through my community music courses at Stevenson and the Conservatoire and direct several choirs of children, young people and also an adult choir in Edinburgh.
The first gig I ever attended was probably a concert by Ian White in Thurso. As a child, I regularly performed with my large musical family. I would consider my first big break to be my first solo opera role with Stevenson College. I love networking and collaborating with other people and this has proved to be very useful for finding work.
Three words to describe my thoughts on music would be: community, communication and collaboration.
Mentee: Rona Topaz
Rona is a singer, songwriter and actress who also teaches singing at Craigroyston High School and Glasgow Music Studios. Rona located to Glasgow from London having studied music theory and performing arts at a specialised college. The first gig Rona ever went to was MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy), Madison Square Garden, 1979 – headlined by Bruce Springsteen!
I became Involved in the Hear Glasgow Mentoring project because I was interested in receiving some marketing and business support for my works as a singer and voice coach. The outcomes will benefit me greatly. Having developed a brand and also a website has encouraged me to define what it is I do as a singer and creative artist. My future success and work will benefit greatly.
“I worked for 12 years with the British Council, an international cultural relations agency, my work involved supporting the international aspirations of our education sectors. Through it I met people from roughly 80 countries around the world and got to go and work in countries I’d have been unlikely to visit for holidays. For the final three years I managed a leadership development project for people who wanted to make a positive change on their communities, here in Scotland and across the Arab world. I loved it. It re-engaged me with training people, a qualification I’d gained almost a decade earlier, and as I delivered training work in Jordan and Lebanon I found my questions changing again. How can I do more of this? Do I have enough faith in myself to work for myself?
I found the answer to that was yes and I established Elembee, a training company. At the heart of all good training are questions. Questions that enable us to take actions to improve our careers, to enhance our leadership, to build positive working relationships across communities and countries.
I got involved with the Hear Glasgow mentoring project thanks to Grant McWhirter, the entrepreneur behind YRock. He had been a participant on one of the leadership programmes that had run between Scotland and Jordan – and as he put the administration of this project together he asked if I would provide the training to develop the skills of the mentors and mentees, to enable them to get the most out of their mentoring relationships. It is the kind of work I set up the business to do. Develop training to encourage people to notice things differently and think about what questions would spur them onto getting the most from a situation.
Leading on from the training day I was asked to mentor Matthew Todd. We are just at the start of the mentoring and already I am getting a lot from it. I am not a musician, but have found that being in contact with Matthew I have started to practise the piano again and I’ve been to hear live music in Glasgow – something I have not done for years. As we go through the process I’m sure that as I think of questions that would be most helpful for him, it will also leave me with new questions to think about myself.
Of course, one of them will be whether or not the weather has something to do with this being a city full of music?”
Mentor: Louise Quinn
Lousie Quinn is a freelance singer, songwriter and performer and believes that she got to where she is now by chance and choice. Louise studied drama at the RSAMD which included singing, has had some guitar lessons although is mainly self taught. Louise also delivers song writing workshops and projects and is a music leader in schools and the community.
Louise considers her first big break to be getting a guitar when she was nine to be like her Big Brother Shug. The first gig Lousie ever went to was the The Stranglers at The Barrowlands when she was twelve and first gig ever played was at school with a rock covers band. Louise was busking on Buchanan Street, Glasgow when she was spotted by Bal Cooke and the rest as they say is history.
Louise describes music as: life, energy and expression
Mentor: Andrew Dobbie
I’m a Lecturer in Events Management at Glasgow Caledonian University where I have been working for the past six years. I teach students who are interested in working in various different sectors of the events industry from gigs and festivals to corporate events and weddings. I had always wanted to work in events but had never really considered working in the academic side of things until I was offered a short term research contract at GCU where I carried out a study of local festivals, I then got involved in teaching and it all went from there! I’m very lucky in that I really enjoy my job, it’s always great to see how students develop and incredibly rewarding to see them do well. This mentoring programme is really just an extension of what I do and I’m looking forward to working with Marianne on a one to one basis.
Events have always played an important part of the music industry – they allow people to experience music in a live setting and engage with the artist. With declining physical sales of music live performance is becoming even more important. A lot of people think that working in music events in glamorous but I’m sure that most people who work in the industry know that it’s actually pretty hard work!
I’m not as directly involved in music as some of the other mentor but I hope that I will be able to pass on some of my knowledge to my mentee which will help her to develop her career in music events. There is also no way I am going to share my awful music taste with you as it would just be embarrassing in comparison with the other mentors!
Mentor: Katie Sutherland
Katie is a Singer/ Songwriter from Glasgow. When Katie was younger she was given piano and oboe lessons but has not studied any music courses at college or uni because she is a great believer in experience. Prior to working in the music industry Katie studied primary teaching and taught music lessons as part of the curriculum.
The first gig Katie ever went to was The Strokes in 2002. Katie says that
being in this Industry is full of ups and downs. One signing could be a big break to some…..I always strive to aim higher.
When Katie started out she made a Myspace profile and started off with playing as many support slots in Scotland as possible in one summer – gigging approximately 4 nights a week. As all promoters, bands and musicians are always in the same circuit Katie believes you need to be quite a social person to find other bands, musicians and gigs.