ABOUT DRUM THE BASS

Drum The Bass (DTB) is a creative arts organisation based in the UK. Founded by Project producer Shirin Sriram and musician / composer / producer Shri Sriram. The company was initially setup to release and support Shri’s albums and live performance tours all over the world.  

In 2014 Shri had a brainwave of a collaboration between Indian music & brassband, after a discussion with Yorkshire based drummer Marc Layton-Bennett who introduced him to the world of British brass bands. Shri and Shirin took this idea to the Arts Council, with the help of Supriya Nagarajan of Manasamitra and John Cummings of Serious and the ground breaking, award winning project ‘Just A Vibration’ (JAV) was born!! Rachel Veitch-Straw of Brass Bands England was key in introducing Shri & Shirin to Hammonds Saltaire band in Huddersfield, led by conductor Morgan Griffiths. Shri went on to compose for this project which featured Hammonds Saltaire brass band, sitar player Jasdeep Degun, drummer Marc Layton-Bennett and arranger / saxophonist Ben Castle. JAV performed all over the UK, including EFG London Jazz Festival, Shambala festival, Freedom festival and Gateshead. These projects started off a whole range of DTB's Arts Council England projects.

JAV made waves in the British brass band world and Shri won a BASCA (now Ivors) British Composer Award for this project. Shirin went further to develop a youth arm of JAV in partnership with Bradford Music Education Hub, South Asian Arts-UK and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (HCMF) to create ‘Just A Vibration - Learning & Participation’ an epic performance featuring around 80 musicians.  

At a JAV performance at Shambala festival, Shri and Shirin re-connected with music business consultant Michael Fuller, from Association of Independent Music (AIM), who expressed an interest in working on a community project in Croydon. Shirin loved the idea and in discussions with Shri and Michael the cross genre composition project Croydon Composers was created. Musicians from a wide range of genres and cultures in Croydon were invited to collaboratively compose and perform and was mentored by Shri, where necessary. This further led to DTB creating a youth project. Shri composed and worked with young musicians from varied genres in partnership with Croydon Music & Arts (western), Music Relief (urban) & Sangeetha (South Asian) which resulted in a performance at Boxpark, Croydon with adult & young Croydon Composers performing on the same stage. 

After the first Young Croydon Composers (YCC) project in 2018, some young musicians expressed an interest in creating music themselves. Shri mentored the young musicians to create & perform their own compositions for a cross arts project called Assemble in partnership with Dance Umbrella & Kathak / Flamenco choregrapher, Jose Agudo. 

The adult Croydon Composers project was brought together again during the pandemic in 2020. The lockdown restrictions actually enabled the inclusion of participants from all over the UK composing together in duos or trios to create new cross genre music. Each group made a music video, filming themselves & videographer Antonio Lewis put the videos together. DTB released this album worldwide & the videos on Youtube and also made some great new connections through this project. 

Armed with new ideas and partnerships, Shirin, Michael & Shri went on to create the current version of Young Croydon Composers. Mentored by Music Director Shri Sriram & music mentor / trombonist / composer, Dennis Rollins MBE, young musicians work in groups or bands. Each group collaboratively create an original composition, record it professionally, make a music video, rehearse & perform to audiences in iconic venues in Croydon. Videographer Antonio Lewis assists young participants to create the music videos and Michael Fuller mentors the young people on copyright, income streams & how to make  money from music.

This year, for the first time, DTB will take the tried & tested model of Young Croydon Composers (YCC) to Bradford & Leeds, working in partnering with SAA-UK (south Asian arts) & BMEH (Bradford Music Education Hub).