Beatport & Circus Recordings announce First 'Beat in School' Winner

Beatport and Circus Recordings have revealed the first winner in the Beats In School producer contest series.

After narrowing the entries down to 20 standout finalists, Circus boss – Yousef selected 28-year-old producer Taya Mills as the winner. As part of the big prize, Yousef and the Circus family will accelerate Taya’s career with a coveted year-long label mentorship.

“I’m looking forward to pooling our resources to help get Taya more exposure,” Yousef says. “He is skilled, makes great tunes and has a really positive energy. I thought he could be a great asset to Circus and a friend to me and all our team.”

A favourite fixture in his hometown of Byron Bay, Australia, Taya has a deep passion for house and techno. Raised in an actual circus (this is the contest he was born to win) by rave-loving parents, he started out making music as a young teen, honing his current sound during a stint in Berlin. Now dividing his time between Byron and the growing electronic music scene in Bali, Indonesia, Taya continues to make waves as a producer and DJ. “I look up to Yousef and I believe being mentored by him will allow me to reach my full potential,” Taya says. “Touring the world sharing my music has been my dream since I was nine, and it’s becoming closer and closer to my reality.”

Taya’s Beats In School prize includes hands-on support from Beatport, training from Point Blank Music School, and coordinated press and social media support. As part of the Hardware Homework initiative, each winner will also work closely with specialists from leading brands including Serato, Roland, Pioneer DJ, Native Instruments and many more. Additional prizes come from Adam Audio, Urbanears, iZotope, Native Instruments, Landr and Roland Cloud.

With Circus finding its winner, Beats In School is moving into phase two. The next winner lands a coveted year-long mentorship with Anjunabeats, the label owned and A&R’ed by trance icons Above & Beyond.

Hear Taya’s winning mix (original track at 22:33) and find out more about Beats In School: http://beatport.com/beatsinschool

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Grahame Farmer

Grahame Farmer’s love affair with electronic music goes back to the mid-90s when he first began to venture into the UK’s beloved rave culture, finding himself interlaced with some of the country’s most seminal club spaces. A trip to dance music’s anointed holy ground of Ibiza in 1997 then cemented his sense of purpose and laid the foundations for what was to come over the next few decades of his marriage to the music industry.