Students bring poems to musical life

Professional musicians from The Sage Gateshead have collaborated with students from our School of Computing to bring poems to life through music.

The two musicians are guitarist Rob Braniff and singer and songwriter Jane Lindenberg. Rob works as a Community Project Leader for The Sage Gateshead, while Jane is a Project Leader.

Together they have worked with final-year BSc (Hons) Digital Music students over several weeks, exploring the use of various musical instruments and digital technology to interpret two contrasting poems.

The students selected ‘The Kraken’ by Tennyson from the Victorian era or ‘My Green Love Feels Yellow Today’ by Mir Mahfuz Ali, a Bangladeshi poet. Their compositions will be assessed as part of their course work.

Good quality education John Dixon, Senior Lecturer in Computing, said: 'The Sage Gateshead is an iconic part of the region with a very active outreach programme. It’s great kudos for the students to work with Rob and Jane, who have such wide industry experience. This collaboration shows a ‘meeting of minds’ to provide good quality education to as wide a studentship as possible and make the first move to forging a lasting link between the two institutions.'

Rob said: 'The students have been fantastic; it’s been a pleasure working with them. The facilities in the Athena and Phoenix Buildings are awesome; universities nationwide should take a look at what we’ve got here on Teesside.'

Jane added: 'It’s been my first time working here and such a positive experience. The Athena Building is a really nice environment and the students have been engaged and enthusiastic.'

Students who worked with the musicians gave their comments:

• Adam Gatenby BA (Hons) Digital Music Creation (with Digital Media) from Middlesbrough, said: 'It’s been a good opportunity to work with experienced musicians. They have provided us with a lot of ideas and have helped me get a feel for and understanding of the poems, which will help me a lot with the project.'
• Kathryn Belmont, also BA (Hons) Digital Music Creation from Darlington, said: 'It’s been good to have new people with fresh ideas who can offer inspiration and experience. I want to go into youth work and I’m sure I can use these new skills.'
• Dan Wilson, BA (Hons) Digital Music and Computer Games Design from Dunstable, Bedfordshire, said: 'I’m aiming to go into sound design for computer games. This has been such a good opportunity to see and learn how sound can be made for moving images and other media.'

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