› Young artists connect at the 2022 Dream Big Youth Music Festival

CMVic congratulates the students, teachers, artists, and organisers of the Dream Big Youth Music Festival on RUOK Day, 8 September! CMVic stalwarts Steph Payne, Jen Hawley and John Lane worked alongside Outer West artists Amy MacDonald (The Fabulous Meltones), Guillermo Viran (Hasta La Cumbia) and Adolphus Zarwue (AD da Boss) to mentor youth from 8 years old up to 25 to write original songs focussing on themes around social and emotional wellbeing, also inspired by the ideas of RUOK? School staff involved in the process included music, classroom and wellbeing teachers.

Delivered as a hybrid event, online and live at The Bowery Theatre, St Albans, several schools were able to organise to travel to the theatre to perform live. But many more young people were able to contribute, as they did for last year's inaugural 'lockdown' festival, by filming their creations at school or at home and submitting these recordings for the livestream. The livestream, beautifully produced by Ralph Barba at LiveFM, recorded 178 viewing locations watching live, resulting in a hybrid audience of 1,000 or more live viewers. 

Funding partners included Royal Children's Hospital, Brimbank Council, North West Melbourne Primary Health Network and a large contribution from the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing which will allow the program to run again, and continue to evolve, in 2023.

A special thank you to Cr Jasmine Nguyen (Mayor of Brimbank) for her inspiring welcome and enthusiastic support of youth arts and wellbeing in Brimbank and the Outer West.