As he prepares to open a new arts and learning centre, Leon Patel reflects on those that have helped and inspired him since the moment he picked up his first tambourine.
Iain Mellor
Iain was my first percussion teacher and, quite simply, without his friendship and guidance I wouldn’t be doing what I’ve done all my working life. As a 14-year-old, long-haired rock guitarist, I was told about an amazing percussion band at my local community centre in Mossley (now Cabasa Carnival Arts). I reluctantly walked up the hill to enter a brightly lit room full of people and had a tambourine shoved in my hand. I shook it. Twenty-one years later and I’m still hooked on percussion.
Ian took all of the young musicians in the group under his wing and provided us all with a unique and meaningful musical journey that can’t be found in formal education. By the age of 16 I was assisting in professional workshops. By 18 I had a ready-made career in arts and culture, and at 21 I was co-directing Cabasa alongside three other people I’d grown up with.
Iain’s mentorship went far deeper than just music education and facilitation. Anywhere Iain goes, he takes his warm energy and amazing ability to inspire and nurture anyone who will listen. He is completely dedicated to the idea that the arts can transform lives, no matter who you are, where you’re from or what challenges you may face. This core message is now at the heart of the educational social enterprise Bangdrum CIC that I direct alongside him.
Flavio Pimenta
In 2000 I travelled to São Paulo in Brazil and met a group of 80 young people. I didn’t know it at the time, but these young people were going to change the way I thought about the world, my place within it and give me the inspiration to realise my dreams in life. They were part of the Meninos do Morumbi artistic social project founded by Flavio.
Every week Meninos supports thousands of young people from the surrounding favelas (shanty towns). Through music, dance, arts and creativity, the project offers a safe and supportive environment for young people to learn how to transform their lives for the better. Using social enterprise, profit is distributed within the community offering family support, food, clothing and most importantly a purpose in life.
By 2003 I had set up an international cultural exchange project with Meninos in Oldham, Manchester. Taking inspiration from our sister project in Brazil, we dropped that model right into the middle of the race wars in Oldham. The project is now a registered charity renamed Global Grooves. It continues to transform lives through arts and culture and is led by a team of dedicated social entrepreneurs and artists from Brazil and UK that grew up under the mentorship of Iain and Flavio.
The next generation is soon on its way with the development of our Future Leaders Arts Apprenticeships, for young people aged between 13 and 25.
Dave Moutrey
Through my early involvement in Cabasa I came across Mossley Community Arts, which was based in the same community centre. To me as a teenager, they were seemingly a group of ‘older’ men and women who got together to create bizarre things – from Russian bin men and exploding wheelie bins in Ashton town centre, to giant fire-breathing dragons wowing audiences in Barcelona. Dave was key in making things happen, with his clear philosophy of ‘do it anyway’. No funding, no support, too busy? Are you passionate about your creative idea? In that case, just get on with it.
His career lead him to become the CEO of what is now the Audience Agency, then Cornerhouse and more recently HOME in Manchester, due to open this spring. He is a model leader in arts and culture. He is the reason why we will open our own small arts centre in Mossley in summer 2015. With little support or encouragement from the powers that be, we went ahead and did it anyway.
Holly Prest and Eraldo Marques
I wouldn’t have travelled anywhere in my career and life without the people who have made that journey with me. Many people have supported, inspired, grounded and educated me, but Holly and Eraldo are key to the success of all the amazing things that I do.
As children, Holly and I made the regular Monday night pilgrimage to Cabasa. We spent our teenage years playing together and soaking up cultures and rhythms from around the world. These rhythms became our heartbeat and this connection will stay with us forever.
At the same time that Holly and I were travelling up an icy hill in Mossley, Eraldo was making the same mental journey down a sunny road in São Paulo to Meninos. Chance meant we all met in the UK and now we work together every day, pushing our artistic and social dreams as far as we can take them. Holly and Eraldo are my inspiration, my best friends and my strength. Without them the cultural carnival offer in the North West just wouldn’t be as rich and as beautiful as it is today.
Leon Patel is a freelance musician and project manager, and Director of three leading arts organisations: carnival arts charity Global Grooves, schools’ music provider BangDrum and Drum Jam, which offers percussion-based corporate team-building.
Together with one of his gurus, Iain Mellor of Cabasa Carnival Arts, Leon is putting forward over £35,000 of his own money to launch a new arts and learning centre. The social enterprise (as yet un-named), in Tameside, Greater Manchester, will open this summer.
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