BBC recording partnership sees students thrive in studio
Media savvy students have successfully recorded their second live performance for BBC Radio Scotland’s BBC Introducing in Scotland programme, in a first-of-itskind partnership.
Ayrshire College students facilitated a recording session of Edinburgh-based musician NANI, helping with showrunner duties, capturing video and sound, and taking photographs.
The three-year partnership between Ayrshire College and BBC Radio Scotland is the first-ofits-kind, with Ayrshire College being Scotland’s first educational institution to collaborate with the BBC Music Introducing project, who has had enormous success in England, helping to launch the careers of Ed Sheeran and Rita Ora.
The partnership provides students with meaningful work experience in the creative industries, by networking and working with sector leaders, liaising with music artists, and gaining experience of recording live performances to broadcast quality.
The recording sessions take place in the newly upgraded Studio G54 at the college’s Ayr Campus, which received significant funding from the Ayrshire College Foundation to help realise the department’s ambitions.
With support from lecturers David McAulay and John McBlain, five students were involved in NANI’s recording session. Jake Ballantyne (HNC Media Analysis & Production) was in charge of video capture, Callum Gibb (HND Sound Production) had a sound production role, Nicole Kilpatrick (HND Music) was the showrunner and artist liaison, while Ashley McKinlay and Anna Williams (both NC Photography) were the photographers on the day.
Patrick Devlin, Curriculum Manager for Music and Sound Production at Ayrshire College, said: “As the sole FE partner in this unique collaboration for the whole of Scotland, we feel honoured and extremely privileged to be involved with CCSkills and BBC Scotland.
“As a department, we always strive to go further to provide a competitive advantage for our students and this opportunity to work with such a global media partner, doesn’t come around very often.
“We hope it is the start of a fruitful partnership for years to come.”
Lindsay Gillies, Producer for BBC Introducing in Scotland, said: “From the BBC’s point of view, this is a great situation to be in.
“This partnership provides the opportunity to record a professional sounding session and working to deadlines to have the recording session broadcast nationally.”
Ayrshire College was identified by Creative & Cultural Skills as the perfect partner for BBC
Music Introducing in Scotland.
Kathryn Willens, Head of Partnerships (Scotland) at Creative & Cultural Skills, added: “The team at Ayrshire College and the student cohort involved have really set the pace with this partnership with BBC Scotland / BBC Music Introducing.
“It’s always inspiring when efforts to connect the UK’s world-class creative employers with new waves of industry talent generate such excitement and energy.”