Melbourne’s GRID series expands to Sydney, Brisbane & Perth

Grass Roots Indie Development (GRID), an initiative of Victoria since 2013, is this year expanding to the emerging music communities in the outer suburbs of Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

Four successful applicants in each state will receive a one-on-one session with an established songwriter, have the chance to record with a producer, and be mentored by a music industry expert to discuss their career and develop strategies to ensure music remains core to their lives.

The first round of applications will be for Western Sydney, which takes place from March to May.

This includes song development with Ngaiire and Middle Kids’ Hannah Joy, business mentoring with Melody Forghani (BIGSOUND programmer, director of artist management and publicity firm Twnty Three) and Ben Pierpoint of Maximillian Brown (Ngaiire, Little May, Wallace).

After these sessions, GRID artists can record a new single to exhibit what they’ve learned.

Each records a song with one of the program’s producers, Antonia Gauci (DMA’s, Vallis Alps, Lanks, Kesha) and Ariel Blum (Lara Andallo, Daniel Elia, St.Ives, Sahida Apsara).

The song will be released at the end of the program with a live single launch show in Western Sydney.

Each artist will also develop content to help promote their release, in the shape of a live video and behind the scenes short doco about how their new track came to life.

GRID’s work takes the focus away from stereotypes associated with ‘musical success’ and refocuses attention on the unseen processes, such as community support, time and space to create, collaboration and education.”

The Sydney leg of GRID will include a partnership with Information and Cultural Exchange (I.C.E.) and their New Age Noise program, which provides free training in electronic music production, recording and distribution for young female, transgender and non-binary youth in Western Sydney.

Four I.C.E. New Age Noise alumni will be given the opportunity to shadow producers Gauci and Blum during the recording sessions to gain further experience in a professional studio environment and build new networks with emerging artists.

Ariel Blum, GRID co-founder, says,  “We believe that healthy and thriving music communities can flourish when the doors to knowledge, networks and creative spaces are open to all to be a part of.

“GRID has established ourselves as a bridge for artists to connect with other artists and the music community at large as well as a space for artists to produce exciting and unique work.

“We are beyond excited to bring our program to 4 cities in 2019, with our first instalment in Western Sydney.

“With a team of incredible mentors, we can’t wait to be a part of the growth of the artists involved in the program and hope to contribute in some way towards supporting new ideas, new stories and new sounds that are coming out of the region.”