Garreth Daley talks passion project ‘Journey’ about Alpha School of Music
Published:Sunday | October 5, 2025 | 12:13 AMYasmine Peru - Sunday Gleaner Writer
Tuesday marked the soft launch of Journey, a documentary about the Alpha School of Music, which follows members of the institution’s first graduating class. The journey of the four final-year students — drummer Sanje Landell, the first graduate of Alpha’s vocational programme to move on to tertiary music studies; drummer and valedictorian Jonathan Gordon; bassist Alejandro Keating; and violinist/vocalist Zuri Gordon, the first woman to study music at Alpha — unfolds through the lens of director Garreth M. Daley.
A passionate Daley, CEO of GD Films, “captured the heart of a new generation of Jamaican musicians” in a film that was officially selected for the 2025 Skylark Film Festival in Negril, Westmoreland, over the weekend. Not bad for a passion project.
Daley, who enjoys a good relationship with Joshua Chamberlain from Alpha School of Music, and Stephanie Marley, with whom he worked with on the Wake Up Jamaica project, explained that the documentary “started out from just an idea and having a good relationship with a couple of persons”.
“Zuri was a part of Wake Up Jamaica, so Stephanie was telling me that Zuri was the first female graduating from Alpha School of Music, and I was like, ‘Okay, that’s nice.’ And then she said, I should do something, take some photos or do a little story on her,” recalled Daley, who is always eager to assist young people and show them in a positive light.
The father of four then contacted Chamberlain and told him that he wanted to record the final year show, which was scheduled for May 8. And, so inspired was Daley by the great production put on by the students that he decided to give it his full support and do this as a passion project.
“Their final show was titled Journey, and I just simply interviewed the four students ... and this is just me telling their story. And when we listened to them, we realised that the journey was so important to tell from the four students’ point of view. We recorded the interviews and then I said to Rachel Bryan ... the producer here at GD Films ... that we needed to make this be a piece.”
Speaking from the heart, he shared that projects like this sometimes don’t have the capital to run it or the full team that you want to do it, “but beautiful, beautiful things come out”. They reached out to the editor, Yen, and started putting the documentary together and presented it to Alpha School of Music, who loved it and wanted to have it “shown everywhere”.
“They were just so excited. And this is just a testimony that once you have a good relationship and you have an intention to do good, you realise that the universe just always points [you] in the right direction. Out of that, we did a soft launch on Tuesday, and it was well-received. It was overwhelming in terms of the thank yous, and I would say the sky is the limit for this short documentary,” said Daley, who celebrated his 45th birthday the day after the première.
A big moment for Daley at the première was when Sister Susan of Alpha told him that watching the documentary “brought tears to her eyes because the film was so touching and that he represented Alpha School of Music so well”.
“The students who were in the film were like, ‘Sir, bwoy, trust me, I don’t know how you do it. Everything just looked pretty and nice.’ So to hear the testimony, to hear that a film that is touching people’s lives and so on, that, for me, is a win and I just hope that we can collaborate and big up to Headline and Breakthrough Communications every time for coming through and supporting the cause,” said Daley, who is one of the handful of steadycam operators in Jamaica who has reached the level that he is currently.
Daley, who has worked on Gold Cup America, two Netflix series, music videos such as Go Down Deh with Sean Paul, Shaggy and Spice, and on the film, Sprinter, is also a lecturer at The University of the West Indies. Part of Daley’s passion comes from being a musician himself. He used to play drums in church as a youngster and enjoys live instruments and seeing a band play. His dream for this piece is that “every person who sees this documentary will be inspired one way or the other”.
“We can’t be the reggae and the dancehall capital ... and we also created ska, rocksteady ... and we don’t have practitioners who we are spitting out and exporting to the world. Our genre can stand up against any genre in the world. So I hope this documentary will inspire more persons to support Alpha School of Music because they really need funding,” Daley stated.