In your own words, tell us about Creative Wire workshops and your involvement in it.

I am the founding Creative Director of Creative Wire Workshops and we are dedicated to bringing a wide range of innovative, exciting and fun educational music and, in particular, composition workshops into schools. We offer a creative space where young people are able to express themselves and explore their artistic potential in an entirely supportive atmosphere. We believe heavily in improvisation and spontaneity - this way, students who arent as fluent in the theory side of music are still able to fully engage. The programs we have offered in the past and continue to offer are constantly undergoing change - no two schools or organisations are ever the same - and as such we continually adapt to new circumstances,  technology, trends in music or anything else that impacts what we do.

I have the highest level of respect for teachers and I also appreciate that we can only teach what we know. Generally speaking there are four main areas of music taught within schools - history, theory, performing & composition. All music teachers have history and theory down pat, and most have significant experience performing. However, in most cases, only a tiny percentage have any real experience composing. The composition curriculum at schools is adequate, though does not offer any significant space for students to freely express themselves or their ideas - which I see as a completely missed opportunity. One of the most common statements we receive from teachers is I want to do more with composition, though I dont know how.

It was with this in mind that I branched out from freelancing composing in 2006 and devised Creative Wire (although under a different name) to offer schools a real alternative way of teaching composition. The organisation has changed and developed over the last four years, especially over the last  three years, where I took the business to London. Weve now returned to Australia with an international offering of services.

You have recently set up a digital/online space for WIREtapped - tell us more about WIREtapped in the real space after the program is released?

Correct - there is a temporary website at www.creativewireworkshops.com/wiretapped2010/schools/index.html , though as the project moves forward  it will move to its own domain. In regards to the real space of WIREtapped 2010, it is an incredibly ambitious, five day event in November/ December  that will be held in eleven locations across Brisbane, which celebrates the devised creative arts of young people aged 9-15. The festival will cater for up  to 7200 children across Brisbane - a figure which translates to over 1.5% of all children in Brisbane and will employ the skills of 37 creatives from all arts sectors (music, dance, drama, film, design etc.)

WIREtapped can be broken into two main sections; liveWIRE and WIREless. liveWIRE will take place in 25 schools (catering for up to 800 students) to devise their own musical theatre piece of which they will retain full ownership of all text, music, drama, set design & costume design. After two months

of weekly workshops it culminates in five days of performances at a Brisbane theatre where they will showcase their creation to both other schools and  the general public.

WIREless will run during the same five days as liveWIREs performance week. Up to ten creative spaces will be established where artists from around Brisbane will run workshops. These workshops will range from dance, drama, music, film making, art & scavenger hunts.

How has the creative/cultural space in your travels overseas affect the way you wish to set up spaces such as WIREtapped or Creative Wire workshops back in Brisbane?

I’m not sure I’m able to find the words to express how much working in a variety of international spaces has allowed me to grow as a creative artist and how much it has influenced the direction, I believe, music education, and indeed education in general should be moving.

Much of my experience was working with a phenomenal, non-profit, London based organisation Music Platform whose aim it is to engage children in  music (and in particular opera) on a truly eye watering scale. In 2008 I was privileged enough to be one of the coordinators for their Love for three oranges project which directly included over 56,000 children across London.

Coming from a relatively white-bred, upper middle class family where its standard to engage in activities such as the arts and sport on a daily level, it was a complete shock to be suddenly working within very low socio-economic situations in the east end of London. As an example, one of my projects was to write a new music curriculum for a school that was in the bottom 1% of all schools in the UK. This school had not seen a dedicated music teacher, space or program in over 25 years! There are some tremendously frightening statistics, though on the flip side of that, it is the children who are in these types of situations that benefit the most from the type of projects that Music Platform and Creative Wire offer. To see a 13 year old student who has never sung or performed in their life come off stage in costume after performing to a full theatre of adulation and seeing the excitement and complete joy on their face is simply overwhelming. We have given them the rare opportunity for them to express themselves and it allows us to demonstrate to them that there are people and organisations out there who actually believe in them. That may sound like an obvious comment -  surely its a given that children feel that they are given the support and nurture they need, but no, it can actually be an incredibly rare occurrence.

It has really highlighted, to me, the need to create spaces where young people are able to be confident, expressive, spontaneous and creative -  particularly those who don not always have the opportunity to do so.

What is the future of Creative Wire workshops/WIREtapped?

It is Creative Wires goal to establish itself as one of the leading creative, cross curricular workshop houses in Brisbane. Although in 2010 we are largely focusing on music and composition workshops, 2011 will see us expanding into the other creative arts and indeed into traditionally less creative  subjects such as maths and science. Out aim is to become a one stop shop for any schools creative workshop needs. These additions will also be  reflected in the WIREtapped 2011 program. This year WIREtapped includes two main areas liveWIRE and WIREless and in 2011 we would like to expand this to four areas. We have a fair idea of what these areas will entail, but wed like to keep that under wraps for the time being. We will say

though, if we have bitten off more than we can chew this year, next year it looks as though well be ordering desert, too!

Finish this sentence "In 20 years time, the type of [cultural/creative/urban/etc] space that I've like to see..."

In 20 years time, the type of creative space that I would like to see is a school solely utilising a workshop based teaching curriculum. I have been  fascinated for a long time by the questions of why (on a minute vs. minute basis) it is that children usually prefer and gain so much more from a  workshop atmosphere than they do in an average school class. Why are they energised and able to channel such astounding levels of creativity in such  a short time?

I believe its because as workshop leaders, we often only have a few short hours to engage children - it means that what teachers have a week or term to achieve, we only have an hour. A great example is a standard high school students composition project: Often theyll have a term to compose a  piece 16-24 bars in length with an hour each week to work on it. In a standard one day workshop with Creative Wire theyll easily write 10 minutes of music.

Support, sponsorship and contributions:

We are now at a stage of looking for expressions of interest from schools interested in participating in WIREtapped or those who are interested in any Creative Wire workshop or program.  We are also looking for sponsorship for WIREtapped 2010 - largely the event is self funded, though we still need to raise around $30,000.

If anyone else would like to volunteer to assist with the WIREtapped event, we would also be more than happy to have a chat

Thanks Lee!