ICMP’s Ary Amato works with Walthamstow Music Halls Project

ICMP Music Production student Ary Amato has joined tutor Sam Jones in recording musicians from Walthamstow as part of a new project celebrating the opening of a new civic space.

Sam is a Music Business Teaching Fellow at ICMP and works on a variety of musical initiatives including the Music Halls Project. 

This collective is funded by Arts Council England and the London Borough of Waltham Forest, takes over different underutilized spaces for recording and live performance. 

Sam said: “I taught Ary as part of the Business and Production Module and they were one of my students who responded to a call out to get involved.”

It was a great day of recording and one of a series we’re hoping to run over the next year. I’m keen to involve ICMP students in this venture as much as possible."

Different local musicians participated in the recording including members of the local Tamil Music Society, the local Syria London ensemble, and string arranger for Jarvis Cocker, all of whom are local to Walthamstow.

Ary said: “We recorded the ensemble in a church in Walthamstow. I helped Sam to build the studio from scratch on location: we used a Digico desk, a combination Shure 58, Neuman TLM, AKG 414 and Rode NTS pencil microphones. 

“We had a combination of close mics and room mics. We started recording the rhythm section first, to then overdub some traditional instruments such as flute, sitar, to move on to the choir. We also recorded a jam between the Tabla ensemble and Djembe at some point.”

Visit amprodmusic.com for more details. 

Photo credits: Jenna Selby photography