By Adam Bell, Head of Arts at Springwell Leeds
Over the past few years we have seen an increased interest in students’ interest in learning and developing DJ skills and, earlier this year, Springwell Leeds’ Music department made the decision to seek opportunities to enhance this offer further.
In March 2023 we were delighted to receive a grant from the Universal Music UK Sound Foundation as a result of a successful application to their fund. Following this award we made contact with Bop DJ, a DJ and Music Production Technology specialist based in Leeds, and shared our wish list. Two questions were posed to the company:
– How much would our wish list cost?
– How much could we get with our funding?
So we could adequately resource our three Leeds sites we were looking for a number of DJ controllers as well as licences for the DJ software and we quickly found we would need our budget to stretch quite far! Andy, the general manager at Bop DJ, told us that Bop DJ are passionate about supporting local schools interested in incorporating DJ-ing in their curriculum and that they would look to put together a special offer for Springwell Leeds.
Within the week Andy came back to us having been in touch with ‘InMusic’ (owner of Numark) and ‘Serato’ (who produce the DJ software) on behalf of the school. As a result, Bop DJ made us an offer that ensured we could secure all the equipment we required for all three sites that worked to our budget.
We were delighted to take delivery of the DJ controllers before summer and are now in the process of setting up the Serato accounts.
We would like to extend our thanks to the Universal Music UK Sound Foundation for their support and offer particular thanks to Andy at Bop DJ for his incredible support of our Music curriculum. We encourage anyone with an interest in DJ-ing or Music Production to visit the Bop DJ shop on Church Walk in Leeds or support them in any way possible.
