Youth Work Ireland’s Irish Youth Music Awards, Ireland’s largest youth led music programme brought the riffs to the Aviva Stadium today to launch the IYMA’s album and to announce the role out of its programme for 2016.
Jake Mc Ardle (Youth Work Ireland Louth’s 2015 IYMAs Recipient) and Laura Duff (Limerick Youth Services Paul Clancy Songwriter Winner) launching the IYMAs album at the Aviva Stadium.
Jake Mc Ardle (Youth Work
Ireland Louth’s 2015 IYMAs Recipient) and Laura Duff (Limerick Youth Services Paul Clancy Songwriter Winner) launching the IYMAs album at the Aviva Stadium. PHOTOGRAPHER: Ruth Medjber
The album which features original songs written by young people from county Louth and whose team were the recipient region of the 2015 programme, taking home the prize at the national day earlier this year, out of sixteen other competing regions. The album also features an original track by Limerick native Laura Duff who won the Paul Clancy Song Writing Award.
These talented young musicians got the chance to record their album in Temple Lane studios, Temple Bar, following in the footsteps of some of the world’s most prestigious musicians who have recorded there including The Script, Kanye West and The Coronas.
To date over 85,000 young people across the entire island of Ireland have taken part and benefited from the Irish Youth Music Awards and it has grown in popularity since its inception eight years ago. Every year the programme is launched and rolled out in clubs and projects all over Ireland, and in partner organisations in Northern Ireland. Each region holds a local live selection night and chooses an act and original song to represent the region at the National day and to get a chance to perform in the Aviva Stadium. All the other regional performers then form a team around the representing act, and learn a range of new skills such as recording, sound engineering, marketing, social media and public relations.
Speaking today IYMAs Director Barry Lennon said “It’s great to have a programme like this where we can empower young people and use music as a creative force within their lives. Music is an important educational tool to support young people progress to further educational opportunities and also employability within the ever growing creative and music industries that exist within Ireland and overseas. We are developing a brilliant programme for 2016 and already have begun working with youth services and projects across Ireland and will be revealing details about the national day in early 2016 with tickets on sale now. We hope that we can grow the programme further for 2016 and have already developed some exciting strategic partnerships to support this.”
Jake McArdle representing act for team Louth had this to say today “The IYMA’s programme for me was a great opportunity to learn new skills, meet new people and to ultimately grow my confidence as a person and a musician. I believe the programme is a great team project and provides great experience to learn about the music industry. At our local live selection event last year I was picked as the performer to represent Louth and I had the pleasure of performing the song that was picked by Kate Rogers, this song was called I’ll Follow You. The journey we went on as a team to get to the Aviva Stadium was great and I am now looking forward to mentoring other young people and supporting them while they get involved in the programme.”
The album is available now exclusively in the following HMV stores – Dundrum, Henry Street, Grafton Street and Louth. The album can also be purchased directly from the HMV Online store now plus digitally on iTunes and on Amazon Prime
For further information on the Irish Youth Music Awards 2016 please contact:
Barry Lennon Email – iymas@nullyouthworkireland.ie
The Irish Youth Music Awards National Day takes place on Saturday April 16th 2016 at the Aviva Stadium Dublin. Doors open at 10am. This event is All Ages and Alcohol Free.
Tickets: General admission 20 euro available from Eventbrite now here.
You can follows the Irish Youth Music Awards on Facebook, Twitter and their website.
