Internationally renowned bluegrass band Cup O’Joe returned to their origins at Southern Regional College recently.
The band played an intimate VIP gig at the Armagh campus’ new facilities, entertaining the audience with a truly remarkable performance.
Siblings Tabitha, Benjamin and Reuben are former SRC students, with Tabitha and Reuben previously studying music at the College.
The band’s fourth member is Tabitha’s husband David Benedict, who is also a world class musician.
When invited to play a gig, the band jumped at the chance to return to where it all began, admittedly in slightly different surroundings, being the state of art Armagh campus. The music studios in the College are amongst the largest and best equipped in the UK. With equipment any aspiring musician or sound producer would be eager to get their hands on.
The band have racked up multiple accomplishments, achieving recognition such as the BBC folk awards and International Bluegrass Music Association awards. The band have also appeared in multiple BBC television documentaries and TV series.
The band are currently touring the USA and generously agreed to interrupt their tour to visit SRC.
Cup O’Joe performing at the intimate gig at SRC
During a professional workshop the band shared insights with current music students at SRC, sharing their global experience and industry understanding. Being a musician is more than just playing music, you need a sound business head to continuously promote the band, get gigs, manage a website and be on top of social media.
To keep the momentum, Tabitha was keen to point out that aspiring musicians need to keep releasing new content, be creative and learn from the best educators in the industry.
Tabitha and Reuben enthused about their former lecturers, Paddy Craig and Matt Duke, as being the best of the best.
To make it in today’s industry the band explained you need “personality, drive, energy and perseverance”. Something of which Cup O’Joe have in abundance.
Southern Regional College have launched the first Level 6 top-up degree in Creative Music and Audio
Production.
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