Cllr Lyall Reed on The Bunker school of sound project

Transcript

00:00Yeah, so the Bunker School of Sound Project is a group of us counsellors from St. Michael's,

00:05Ward, Barnes, St. Peter's, Ryup and Castle, and we're all chipping in money to the Bunker to

00:10fund free music lessons for primary school children across Sunderland in our wards.

00:16And it's basically the idea is to reduce the barriers that stop people from being able to

00:21sort of get into music, like the cost of lessons, the cost of instruments. It's basically just

00:25trying to give free music lessons to kids across the city. And the Bunker is an excellent facility

00:30in the city, isn't it? Yeah, the Bunker is massively underused. You know, it's a venue,

00:34it's a place for children to learn to play music, to get confidence. It's a sort of mental health

00:38support for people who want to learn and feel a sense of community. And it's a sort of space for

00:43bands to come and practice. It's all sorts of things. It's really underutilised, which is why

00:48we're trying to get them to go into primary schools to show people what they have to offer,

00:52to try and stir that sort of creative music spirit in Sunderland.

00:55And it's really valuable for children to be introduced to music at a young age, isn't it?

00:59Yeah, yeah, it is. I mean, music is tremendous for not just sort of mental health support and

01:04career opportunities, but with the film studio coming in Sunderland sort of later down the line,

01:09there's a real opportunity for some students of sort of music and DJ experience to go into the

01:15creative film studios as a career. So we're trying to sort of get on top of that before the film

01:20studio gets there to sort of build those skills up.