Marsha Swanson - Founder of TroubleChutes
Marsha Swanson has spent the last 25 years combining her music knowledge as a recording artist with the experience gained from pioneering therapeutic work with deprived inner-city children. As a young psychology graduate, she worked for Camila Batmanghelidjh after Camila heard her perform a song called “Johnny Can’t Read” at a live concert. This soon developed into innovative lyric workshops, where talking about a song enabled some children to relate to and explore problems in their own lives from a safe distance. Marsha expanded this work further in many schools up and down the country using music as a therapeutic tool. For some children, she used performance to embody and liberate. For others, just listening to a song that was emotionally attuned was enough.
Marsha went on to do this specialist music work for children who could not access mainstream education and had weekly supervision for this work from one of the leading child psychotherapists of our time, Dr Anne Alvarez (Tavistock Clinic) for 5 years. After taking a break to become a mother, Marsha moved on to write songs for pre-school children for the celebrated children’s entertainer Amanda’s Action Kids. She then took up a position at Carlisle Infant School providing one-to-one work music work with children who found it difficult to focus in the classroom.
Completing the cycle, Marsha was contacted by Camila Batmanghelidjh in 2022 to help her with a pilot nurture program run by the Oasis Charity and conducted in a primary school in Central London to support children impacted by life adversities and the pandemic. Marsha was able to bring the TroubleChutes resource (newly developed during the pandemic) directly to the source! The pilot scheme was successful and yielded a dramatic rise in the school’s SATs results.
Therapy project yields ‘dramatic’ rise in Sats results at London school | Primary schools | The Guardian
Marsha's history as a recording artist
Renowned for her insightful lyricism, and hailed as ‘a songwriter who weaves insightful and thought-provoking lyrics into irresistibly catchy tunes’ by Rock and Reel magazine, singer-songwriter Marsha Swanson released her third album, Near Life Experience in January 2024. She launched the album with a special live performance with her band and string section at London’s iconic Bush Hall. It followed the widespread critical acclaim of her debut album Watershed in 2005 and follow-up album Sentient Stardust in 2007.
In 2008, Marsha won Best Folk Artist and Best Album at the Glasswerk New Music Awards in London, with Sentient Stardust receiving a stunning response from regional and national BBC radio. Marking her signature brand of progressive ‘grown-up pop’, Swanson’s music is a tapestry of ‘romantic realism’, weaving emotive storytelling into captivating melodies. Recorded at Konk studios in London and Echo Zoo studios in Eastbourne, it features some of the UK’s top musicians. The album cover is a visual masterpiece designed by the legendary Storm Studios, responsible for iconic creations for artists such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Muse. Marsha was delighted when album Sentient Stardust inspired multiple designs by the late Storm Thorgerson, that were later selected for inclusion in Storm Thorgerson’s collection, “The Raging Storm”. Adding to this impressive roster is the multi-platinum-selling producer Iestyn Polson, recognised for his work with icons like David Gray, Patti Smith, and David Bowie.
Stripped down acoustic piano versions of the songs on Near Life Experience have been interpreted and recorded by pianist Clifford Slapper (David Bowie, Boy George, Lisa Stansfield and author of Bowie’s Piano Man: The Life of Mike Garson.
Other musical collaborations have included an experimental writing project with Steve Sidelnyk (programmer/drummer to Madonna) and Richard Robson (programmer/remixer to Richard Ashcroft/Magic Numbers) and Canadian composer Ken Ramm (Euphoria). Marsha co-wrote with Joe Cang (hit writer of Aswad’s “Shine”, BAFTA-nominated producer and writer Tim Baxter, lyric consultant on Martina Topley Bird’s Mercury-nominated album Quixotic, and guest backing vocalist for Phil “Swill” Odgers from The Men They Couldn’t Hang for his Swill and the Swagger Band debut. Marsha has also co-written with the great British prog keyboardist, music producer and songwriter Benjamin Croft. The music video for her collaboration with Ben, Wrestling with Plato, directed by Sam Chegini, was a finalist in the World Film Festival in Cannes. Another unique partnering was with Orange Prize-winning author Lionel Shriver. Marsha was inspired by Lionel’s lyrics from her novel Checker and the Derailleurs about a fictitious band and set them to music. The song was featured on Lionel’s desert island discs for Radio 2. This song has now been re-worked especially for TroubleChutes and is a celebrated part of this resource, dealing with the painful yet relatively neglected subject of ‘popularity’ amongst peer groups.
In 2024, Marsha received semi-finalist awards for 4 songs in 3 different music categories from the prestigious international songwriting event, The UK Songwriting Contest (UKSC). The contest receives thousands of entries every year from over 80 countries around the world. This includes the Singer Songwriter category, which is the only one that judges vocal delivery as well as songwriting.