Places and Soundmaking

Please note: The original composition that we recorded as part of this project will be available online soon. To stay updated, scroll to the bottom of the website to sign up to our mailing list.

Between September and December 2025, community musician Tom Culling worked with a group of eight 4-11-year-old Ukrainian refugees in weekly music-devising and ensemble-playing sessions.

These workshops culminated in a recording session in the studios at Birmingham Conservatoire, led by Tom Culling and Fynn Courtney, in which we recorded the participants' track Love you Dangerously.

This track was written in response to three photos from the participants' homes in Ukraine that were kindly sent to us by their families.

In this project, a variety of gateways into music-making were explored. Particular focus was given to three approaches:

1) Creating musical translations of photos from Ukraine that were kindly sent in by the participants' families.

2) Adapting a well known Ukrainian folk melody into a new work.

3) Live-processing using a tongue drum, amplified with contact microphones (learn more here).

Listen to an extract of our track, Love You Dangerously here --->

This track was mixed and mastered by Tom Culling.

Lyric from the verse of Love You Dangerously:

"My love. My heart. My home forever.

Love yourself like we're together.

Behind me."

2 prints of the photos used as compositional stimuli

Sheet music for The Cossack Rode",a well known Ukrainian Folk song) (L) and a resource to aid improvisation used in the devising process (R).

Participant playing a partially set-up drum kit