Yamaha presents WAY UP: House of Talents, a brand new three-part documentary series featuring Olivia Dean, JNR Williams, Sara Cruz, Ignacio Serrano, Rubin Henkel and Marc Mâhfoud. WAY UP is a project that provides a platform for emerging talents, their sound and their music. “House of Talents” is the documentary series following the journey of six emerging artists from across Europe, coming together for an exclusive song-writing experience in Barcelona, living in a villa filled with instruments and a home studio, on the mission to collaborate, create music and perform live. Yamaha’s Music Head of Brand Europe Sebastian Krenmayr explains: “With WAY UP: House of Talents, the mission was to empower emerging artists from different parts of the world to come together in a creative environment, where they can collaborate, mix their styles and create music.”
The first episode, “Writing & Composing”, shows six upcoming artists who haven’t met before, arrive at the House of Talents in Barcelona. They form teams of two and start their mission to create songs in three days, leading up to a final performance of their work in an intimate concert. The first episode captures the beginning of this creative journey, from the artists getting to know each other, to start writing lyrics and composing melodies.
Episode two, “Studio Time” is about the second day in the House of Talents, where the artists get the chance to experiment with their tracks in the villa’s home studio. Producer Jesus supports them with refining song layers and exploring new instruments. Yamaha artist Miki Santamaria pays a visit to support the new talents in their creative process.
Episode three, “Final Performance”, shows the final day in the House of Talents the artists get ready to perform their individual songs that they have been working on the past days. In an intimate concert, they showcase their results in front of each other
The tree-part documentary is accompanied by a podcast series hosted by Parisa Tarjomani. Parisa talks to some of the artists who were invited to an exclusive songwriting experience this summer in Spain, where Yamaha brought together upcoming artists from across Europe to a villa in Barcelona, filled with Instruments and a home studio, providing a perfect environment to create music and collaborate. The artists, who hadn’t met before, formed teams of two, and within three days, came up with lyrics, composed a melody, recorded the track and on the final day, each team performed their song live in an intimate concert.
Episode one: Olivia Dean
The UK rising soul star does not only have an incredibly soulful voice, but also an unbelievable talent to write captivating songs. In this episode, Olivia talks about her approaches to writing and her way of seeing songs as little time capsules of life experiences that you can look back on.
Episode two: JNR Williams
JNR Williams, a singer-songwriter from London has a unique, warm voice that evokes a wonderful variety of emotions in his listeners. In this episode, JNR opens up about his appreciation to be able to write songs and collaborate with other artists after being in lockdown for so long.
Episode three: Sara Cruz
Portuguese Sara Cruz has a magical personality and amazing talent, with an incredible voice and distinctive guitar skills. Her background is just as captivating, as she lives on this small island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. In this episode, Sara talks about her music style and inspiration, and how her family reacted when they heard about the HOUSE OF TALENTS project. @saracruzmusic
Listen to the podcast on Spotify here.
Read more about WAY UP: HOUSE OF TALENTS on the official website here.
Yamaha Music Europe’s socials
Instagram: @yamahamusiceurope
Facebook: @yamahamusiceurope
Olivia Dean’s socials
Instagram: @oliviadeano
Twitter: @oliviadeano
Facebook: @oliviadeanmusic
JNR Williams’ socials
Instagram: @jnrwilliams
Twitter: @jnrwilliams
Facebook: @JnrWilliamsmusic
