At the end of last year, Folded Wing officially turned 10 years old! As the company goes forward into it’s tenth year, there are plans to celebrate in a bigger way later on in the year.
A word from CEO and founder Karen P:
Read more"There have been so many amazing moments from across the ten years. I think one of the highlights from the early days was very much getting a commission for Nike to do a series of podcasts - That was a really nice moment.
Another highlight was moving into our old offices in Clerkenwell – going from it being in my house to a proper office made everything feel quite proper. I think doing my projects with Jamie Cullum and Gilles Peterson but actually getting a phone call from Jamie saying 'I’ve been asked to do a radio show for Radio 2, I’d love to work with you' – that was quite special.
Winning Gold at the Sony's for The Bookslam Podcast was great as well as that was the first time the Sony's had a podcast category. So for us as a small young company getting recognised for that was amazing as was winning Indie of The Year and Jamie Cullum winning Gold for Music Broadcaster of the year."
"My favourite experience out of everything and this might shock people, as it’s not the coolest out of everything we have done but Gloria Estefan’s Latin Beat was a phenomenal thing to work on because when I was about 8 or 9 that was the music I was dancing around to in my bedroom. So from approaching her manager to her saying yes (even though she had never a radio show before), to working with amazing world music experts, to going over to Miami and recording it in her studio where she recorded all that music – it was an amazing experience."
"The dream goal going forward is to take moving into The Premises into another level – to take over more studios, to do more interesting things. And to look over everything we have done over the last 10 years and to see if there are any boundaries that can be pushed between the branded content that we do and the BBC content.
Right now, it is really bedding ourselves in more of our music roots and where we’re from and making the most of that and doing more things that we really enjoy."
"I think the biggest thing I would say to anyone thinking of setting up a production company is not to be scared to ask for advice and ask for coffees with people. Throughout the ten years of running the company, there’s been various people who have been super supportive that I’ve got coffees with. Also be really open to things! I’ve gone on to do the most random things. It might be connected to something random that is not connected to your loves or what you necessarily do but it’s how to connect up what you do, with other people and how you can help them.
And of course, it’s all about being able to keep going, picking yourself back up again and then carrying on, and just knowing there’s no course, nothing teaches you more than doing it yourself."
Keep your eyes peeled for more news on our plans to hold some events at The Premises later on in the year.
In the mean time, Robin Blamires has made a celebratory 10 Years of Folded Wing podcast:
Robin has also produced a two part special of his podcast A.S.D called Unfolding The Wing. Both episodes can be found here.
