Skills Lab Academy – Repertoire as a Starting Point for Creative Music Making

Skills Lab Academy is a practical training course for musicians who wish to develop their skills in creative music-making and leadership in a range of community settings. It is an opportunity for emerging and established music leaders to expand their toolkit, stretch their skills, and meet fellow like-minded artists.

The course will cover a wide range of topics related to music-leading in community contexts and touch on tailored, specialist approaches to working with a variety of different audiences. In our final session, you will learn techniques for using repertoire as a starting point for creative music-making with Rosie Bergonzi, and skills for leading in a variety of settings with James Redwood.

Spitalfields Music has 30+ years experience of delivering high-quality musical experiences in schools, care homes and other community settings. Through our Trainee Music Leader and Skills Lab programmes we have helped kickstart the careers of many of the UK’s foremost community musicians and workshop leaders.

Meet the leaders of this Skills Lab session

Rosie Bergonzi

Rosie Bergonzi is a classically trained percussionist, and active musician. She came to the handpan in 2014, when she heard a busker play in London, where she lives. It was an instant love affair, as Rosie combined the techniques learned in various forms of hand percussion into something specifically handpan. During the lockdown she started creating tutorials, covers and solo works. She received a Royal Philharmonic Society ‘Trailblazer’ award for her work with the handpan in 2021 and continues to challenge the handpan into unusual areas of music. She has a number of solo records out, available on all streaming platforms. She performed the first world’s first handpan concerto in 2024 with the Chineke! Orchestra written by Cassie Kinoshi. In her work as a workshop leader she encourages people to find their voice, especially focused on minority groups who’ve historically been overlooked in the past Rosie is passionate about creating music in a community setting. She’s worked with ENO, Southbank, Wigmore Hall, London Rhymes and many other institutions to lead and facilitates workshops including collaborative song-writing and instrumental pieces.

James Redwood
James is a composer and music leader who has been creating new music with and for groups for over 20 years. His work has taken him all over the UK and Europe and as far afield as New York and Jamaica. He is passionate about introducing people to new musical experiences as listeners, performers and creators.