Ed Sheeran is one of the names in British popular music today. A young and talented musician who appeared to come out of nowhere to take the UK charts, Radio 1, UK festivals - and now the Brit Awards - by storm.
However, behind his meteoric rise to fame is a lot of hard work rooted in his music education with Access to Music. Ed studied on the Artist Development course in London, where he learned a set of skills which has benefited him in his growing music career.
Of Access to Music Ed says: 'I loved the freedom. Obviously you are there to learn, but they understood that half of the learning you needed for the industry was outside the classroom with gigs and studio time. It gave me the first push, the opportunity to move to London and the freedom to gig and record whenever I could'.
For more info on Ed Sheeran visit his website.
Access to Music students go on to work in all areas of the industry. Archie Lamb and Jack Foster came to Access to Music Norwich to develop their music skills. While there they got hooked on the business side of music and in 2006 they decided to set up their own artist management company.
The new company's coup was to sign and mastermind the phenomenal rise of UK grime artist, Tinchy Stryder. They signed him to a joint publishing deal with EMI and the result was a string of best-selling singles and live appearances.
More recently Takeover Entertainment signed a joint-deal with Jay Z and Roc Nation to create a European record label called Takeover Roc Nation. Takeover Entertainment also manage Giggs, Dappy and ex-Access to Music up-and-coming star Ria Ritchie.
Since 2009, The Saturdays have become one of the biggest girl-groups in the UK with their third album, Notorious, producing some of their biggest hits during 2011.
20-year old, Vanessa White from Somerset studied with Access to Music in London before auditioning to join the group.
Vanessa says: ‘I always knew I wanted to sing since as long as I can remember, it didn’t matter whether I was in a pop band or not. I was always going to sing no matter what, I’m just lucky enough to have this opportunity’.
She is now part of a major arena-status UK act.
