With just one day to go I can feel the excitement building for this year’s Sound and Music Summer course. In just under 24 hours around 40 tutors and staff will arrive at the Purcell School to begin setting up and putting the final touches to their courses and from 2pm a large number of fantastically talented young composers will descend on the Purcell School with ideas bursting from their minds ready to be inspired by their tutors and the musicians surrounding them.

I will be one of the technicians working for the musicians and young composers. I tend to look after the live sound end of things. My friend and colleague (Matti – The Technical Manager) will be taking care of the IT and studio side of the course – you’ll get to know him very well if you’re on the film music strand.

I love working with live sound as you often have to solve problems and challenges on the spot with minimal fuss; using the simplest solution within the shortest possible time. This pressure always gets the adrenaline going and leaves me with a real buzz! Last year the photographer (Martin – if you see him, smile and wave for your new Facebook profile picture!) approached me with something he found challenging. He had a large number of photos which were on his camera (this was day 2) and he wanted to get them out to students and those pictured. We came up with this blog. Built at about 2am it was great fun to put together, if a little exhausting!

The blog was a great success and a large number of people wrote some brilliant articles for it about their work and their time on the course. Of course, Martin’s fabulous pictures also filled much of the site!

This year we’ve had the opportunity to write several articles in advance and find out about what will be taking place on the course. Articles from Aidan Goetzee on what he is doing to prepare for the course, Kerry Andrew talking about what she is looking forward to hearing after the last 6 years of music at the SaM Summer school, and one of our returning musicians Anna Hashimoto reflecting on what she learnt on the last SaM course she was on.

This year, I’m really looking forward to reading articles written by the students on the course. Keep an eye out for them as the week progresses! Finally, just to really whet your appetite, here is a short video from last year’s course: