Milo Claes is a student at the Brit School whose work has been chosen to appear on TV on 2 March as part of Mastercard’s sponsorship of the Brit Awards. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime for the young musician, but his achievement is all the more impressive when you consider that he left his entry to the last minute.
Ahead of this year’s awards, Mastercard challenged students from the Brit School to use their skills to create an original interpretation of Mastercard’s “sonic logo”, which is the audible translation of a brand into a sound. One hundred and eighty students were invited to respond and 14 – including Claes – made it to the final stage, securing the opportunity to have their work featured in Mastercard’s sponsorship campaign. The students will also get to work with industry professionals in their area of interest, giving them rare and real insight into their chosen careers.
“All the students got a mass email about the contest containing the sonic but it was loads of little piano melodies, nothing set in stone, and we could flourish these sprinkles of ideas into a fully bred creative idea,” Claes says. “I treated it like a sample and made a piece of music out of it. I work in a way where if you try too hard for an idea it sounds forced, so I wait for something to enter my brain and then go: ‘There it is.’ That happened the day before the deadline.”
Free to attend, the Brit School accepts creative 14- to 19-year-olds for a formal state education and was named one of Billboard magazine’s 2023 top music business schools. “Our students come from anywhere in the greater London area, we’re a non-fee paying school and the only requirement for entry is that you have a passion and talent for a career in the arts,” says Kerry Western, director of teaching and learning at the Brit School. “We have students from diverse backgrounds, but the common factor is that they are passionate about their art.”
Twelve years in and she is still amazed at how dedicated, confident and talented the students are at such a young age. “On a regular basis I walk past a music practice room, or dance studio, or digital design studio and think: ‘Wow’,” she says. “I feel really lucky to work with these students, [helping] build their professional and creative skills to be successful and, most importantly, responsible artists.”
Mastercard is the headline sponsor of the Brit Awards, which have been in existence for more than 25 years and represents one of the biggest nights in British music. The brand’s sponsorship is not only a celebration of the industry but also represents its commitment to nurturing the next generation of creative talent. It has to-date supported the development of thousands of students through the Brit Trust and the awards’ fundraising activities.
As well as getting to attend the Brit Awards where they’ll see their work showcased, Claes and his fellow finalists will also have their faces shown to the world along with their work. They’ll appear in Mastercard’s sponsorship idents shown on ITV during the awards and on posters around the O2. It’s a surreal experience for Claes. “I’m not really sure how I feel about being on a billboard,” he says. “I really hope I’m not waiting at a bus stop with my face right there and people saying: ‘Is that you?’ – but it’s going to be amazing.”
Before the finalists were announced, Claes had “a bit of an inkling” that his work might have made the cut. “We knew it was coming to a close and they were making a decision so it was a bit tense in the hallways,” he says. “We all got crammed into a room with a camera crew – it was sort of: ‘Here’s some food and snacks and a camera in your face’ – and we all went in one by one and they told us whether we’d got it. Some people came out with a massive smile, while other people were told they were still thinking about it. I actually froze when they told me. They wanted me to react and I flourished out some random comment, but nothing of coherence.”
The successful students then had the chance to have their work professionally produced to make it TV-ready – an experience that Claes won’t forget. “We filmed in this solar-powered studio and had a whole wardrobe team and runners and people touching up your makeup,” he says. “They had this crane, which was the biggest in the whole of Europe – it had just come off the set of the Barbie film – so it was a weird thing to wrap my head around, [but also] a nurturing place to show whatever creativity you had. It’s liberating to have your piece of work put in front of everyone. It’s an opportunity you will never normally get and they gave us that resource – what immense things that has done for our morale and self-confidence.”
Western, who worked in the TV industry prior to teaching, agrees. “There is so much more to the job than just being talented if you want to be successful,” she says. “It’s those extra skills around their talent, and a sense of self belief, that the Brit School is so great at building in students.”
Aside from access to industry specialists as teachers, Brit School students such as Claes get invaluable real-world opportunities as artists. “Like the Mastercard campaign, that can be a sliding door moment for them. It was incredible, for example, for the fashion, styling and textiles students to listen to and meet [fashion designer] Dame Zandra Rhodes. Ultimately campaigns such as Mastercard make them feel that success is accessible, regardless of who they are and what their background is, and this can’t be understated in their educational journey.”
While shooting for the TV campaign, Claes had another surreal moment. “Before every take, [people on set] were shouting: ‘Adele is going to see this, Harry Styles is going to this!’ And there is nothing in your brain that goes: ‘That’s going to happen’, because even if you work hard enough and are good enough, a lot of it is luck in the music industry, so just by being picked for this, already you’re so ahead of the game.”
The BRIT Awards 2024 with Mastercard will take place on Saturday 2 March – watch live from the O2 arena on ITV1 or catch up on ITVX. Mastercard is proud to sponsor the BRIT Awards and support the BRIT School. Discover more at mastercard.co.uk/BRITS