Our Work

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Mubu produce, curate and programme exceptional live music experiences for audiences, artists and communities, from festivals to family productions, concert tours to sustainable community programmes.  We create personal, adventurous performances and distinctive original programmes with lasting social impact, working with national and international organisations and venues, to specialist regional producers across arts & culture, music, festivals, education and health.

 

We work and partner with the Cheltenham Jazz Festival and Birmingham REP to Warwick Arts Centre and Birmingham Royal Ballet, alongside our year-round intergenerational community music programme in North Birmingham – Live in the Lodge – and music in children’s centres & sheltered housing, the NHS, improvised street music and live digital streaming.  We work across diverse jazz, world, roots, folk, contemporary classical, improvised music and beyond, from artistic programming to productions for families, children and schools, to focused co-designed local programmes strengthening communities, inclusion and helping social change through music.

 

We’re very grateful to have much of our work supported and funded by a number of foundations, trusts and funders, including Arts Council England, National Lottery Community Fund and the Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”21777″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”appear”][vc_single_image image=”21816″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Live In The Lodge

Now a prominent community music programme in north Birmingham, Live In The Lodge is our year-round, community-led intergenerational music programme based in Falcon Lodge, Sutton Coldfield, since 2016.  At its heart, Live In The Lodge brings the local community opportunities to take part in free weekly music and instrumental lessons, classes and workshops – open to all ages and abilities, with free instrument loan – on guitar, ukulele, drums, piano/keyboard, spoken word, improvisation, production and a community choir.  In the 2019-20 year, 9 teachers gave over 1200 hours of music classes, with participants playing and learning together hailing from each of the last nine decades.  Alongside our weekly sessions, there are regular participant performances, both in Falcon Lodge and across Sutton Coldfield and Birmingham, and visiting professional guest artists joining for concerts and gigs in the community, local schools and online learning.

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Cheltenham Jazz Festival – Family programme

2023 will be our seventh year producing and programming the ever-expanding family music programme at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, ranging from the award-winning beatboxing of Grace Savage to the Indo Jazz fusion of Arun Ghosh, the Arabic Oud to South American Charango, and several premieres with children’s authors working alongside musicians to shape new commissions for the festival.

Visit cheltenhamfestivals.com/jazz for this year’s programme across the main festival weekend at the end of April and early May.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”21860″ img_size=”full” onclick=”link_image”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Musical Picnic

We founded and produced the long-running monthly Musical Picnic series in its first home at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, from 2011 through to 2019.  A whole host of diverse musics, instruments, artists and cultures brought together in original participatory performances for children, parents and families, which we estimate saw 40,000 visits, and all for free!  We have worked with artists as varied as Shlomo and the Carducci Quartet to Soweto Kinch and Roopa Panesar.

Musical Picnics returned following the Covid pandemic, at Warwick Arts Centre in in autumn 2022, and launching once more in Birmingham in spring 2023.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”21777″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Centrala – Community Workshops & Concert Programme 2021

Working with Centrala – one of the country’s only centres for Central and Eastern European art and artists – we produced a series of community workshops, performances and street music in a number of Birmingham suburbs – Balsall Heath, Handsworth, Erdington, Washwood Heath and Acocks Green; online/digital sessions; and an eclectic Eastern European/Balkan-focused concert programme.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”21850″ img_size=”large” onclick=”link_image”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Birmingham Weekender

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International Dance Festival Birmingham – (In)Visible Dancin’

Curating two weeks of contemporary improvising jazz musicians around the streets of Birmingham for the city’s International Dance Festival.

(In)visible Dancing premiered on the streets of Birmingham at International Dance Festival Birmingham 2010 to great acclaim and popularity, and returned to the streets of the UK for Dublin Dance Festival, before touring to Doncaster, Kingston upon Thames, Coventry and, Southend in 2012 and Italy in 2014 . (In)visible Dancing is available for touring in 2015.

Each event runs over a period of 8-10 days. It begins as a small event and increases in size every time it appears, growing in number of performers and choreographic complexity. Constant rehearsal between shows keeps it fresh and ensures it gradually emerges over several days from what looks like random incidental behaviour on the streets to a fully-fledged dance performance with live music that engages with the location and behaviour of passers-by.  (In)visible Dancing culminates in a thrilling Finale that brings together nearly 100 performers, including local dance groups.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG_c43rPVQ8″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

International Dance Festival Birmingham – Home

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Community Workshop and Performance Series

Working alongside the excellent Birmingham organisations Flatpack Festival, Friction Arts, Polish ExPats, SureStart children’s centres in Ladywood and Erdington, and various community venues across the city.

Part of Birmingham City Council’s Arts Champions programme.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Other recent Mubu projects have included a programme for Appetite’s World In One City International Feast, and taking a series of music into both Birmingham Children’s and Women’s hospitals.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][/vc_column][/vc_row]