Tomorrow’s Warriors announced today it has partnered with Decca (Universal Music) to deliver an innovative Career Mentoring Scheme to 15 emerging Warrior musicians.
Decca hosted a special event at its headquarters in Kings Cross on 11th September, to mark the second year of the partnership with Tomorrow’s Warriors, which was attended by TW mentees and Decca staff mentors.
The event began with introductory speeches from Tom Lewis, Co-President Decca Records and Tomorrow’s Warriors Co-Founder Janine Irons OBE, before a Warriors jam session and then the first opportunity for the young musicians to meet their new mentors.
This is the second year of a partnership that has seen Warriors collaborate with Decca on a year-long programme to deliver vital one-to-one mentoring support to its 18-25 year old musicians from diverse backgrounds, as part of its Emerging Artist Programme. Under the scheme, each Warrior musician is paired with a Decca member of staff across a variety of departments, such as A&R, Marketing, Commercial & Streaming, Catalogue/Product Management, Press & Promotions and Digital. The mentor and mentee then agree on the areas of development they will focus on, in order to help the emerging artist progress in their music career.
In the first year of the partnership Decca delivered mentoring to 13 Tomorrow’s Warriors artists. This year, Decca has increased their funding support, and 15 artists are receiving mentoring including Akin Soul, Allexa Nava, Anoushka Nanguay, Cara Crosby-Irons, Cassius Cobbson, Francisco Garcia de Paredes, Grifton Forbes-Amos, Harry Ling, Joseph Oti, Kianja Harvey-Elliott, Luke Bacchus, Maddy Coombs, Menelik Claffey, Nadav Schneerson and Sultan Stevenson.
Janine Irons explained the significance of the partnership and the opportunity it presents to young artists, “We are very pleased to continue our exciting partnership with Decca, now in its second year. Decca is one of the most important jazz labels in the world and we are pleased to collaborate with them once again to offer industry-leading mentoring to our Warrior musicians and add significant value to our Emerging Artist Programme.
Tomorrow’s Warriors supports the grassroots talent pipeline into the music industry, and Ezra Collective’s epic Mercury Prize win is a testament to this. So it’s wonderful to connect our young artists to the expertise in Decca’s staff team and enrich their journey as professional musicians.”
Tom Lewis, Co-President Decca Records said “We are delighted to renew this fantastic partnership with Tomorrow’s Warriors. Janine, Gary and the team are an inspiration to work with. Their understanding of the power of music in education and community; their ability to recognise, patiently nurture and encourage talent at the earliest possible opportunity; and their proven ability to change the lives and horizons of the musicians with whom they have worked – and all with kindness at the very heart of what they do. We have learnt so much from this scheme. It really is a reciprocal relationship, and we can’t wait to get going again.”
