about us
Grosvenor Road Studios, was acquired by Black Voices in 2001 with the support of Arts Council England. The studios are managed by a voluntary board which brings diverse skills and knowledge of the music industry and community development. The studio complex has recently been re-developed and modernised to better serve our local communities, the city and beyond:
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It boasts one of the largest recording studios in the West Midlands
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A workspace of 7 offices for creative and cultural and community businesses
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A centre for arts training and development
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A hub for arts and community development
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A woodland garden for local children and their families
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Grosvenor Road Studios is a not for profit organisation. It reinvests income into its facilities, creating further opportunities to increase community offers and services.
Birmingham City Council awarded Grosvenor Road Studios a contract to deliver a program of training and development. CREATE - creative renewal, enterprise, arts training & empowerment delivering networking events and training sessions with the Black Arts Forum. It provided practical guidance on how practitioners and organisations can move to the next level, growing more leaders from the African Diaspora and identifying bottlenecks in terms of skills, knowledge and networks, finding creative ways to support wider practitioners and organisations to progress.
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One of the themes of CREATE is redefining the mainstream. We aspire to play a full part in nurturing home-grown talent to be seen regionally, nationally and internationally.
THE LEGACY
Grosvenor Road Studios, formerly the renowned Hollick & Taylor Studios, has been Birmingham’s best keep secret for over seventy years. During that period, many firsts have been recorded here including: All the original sound effects for Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds Are Go, the fabulous brass band rendition of Brighouse and Ratrick’s Floral Dance, the first Brum Beat album, Jasper Carrott’s Funky Moped.
The fabric of the original house dates to 1872. At this time Handsworth was part of Staffordshire, but in 1911, with a population of 70,000, Handsworth became a major suburb of Birmingham.
The Taylors bought the house in 1945 and converted part of the house into a recording studio soon afterwards. It became known as Hollick & Taylor studios when John Taylor teamed up with Charles Hollick, a technical engineer with whom he had previously worked.
The studio has been changed and refurbished several times over the past seventy years, adapting to suit the demands of the music industry and accommodating new changes in technology.
Following the death of Charles Hollick, the studio changed its name to Grosvenor Recording Studio Complex and has continued producing high quality recordings up to the present time.
As it stands today, Grosvenor Road Studios houses one of the largest recording studios in the Midlands. Acoustically treated, it works well for solo or orchestral recordings, with the studio accommodating up to 50 people.