Rock legend and co-founder of The Who, Pete Townsend has opened a new studio at Ealing’s University of West London (UWL) which is now home to a dozen of his synthesizers as well as other instruments played by Mr Townsend over his career which started in the 1960s.
The Townshend Studio is based at UWL’s London College of Music at the University’s Ealing campus and came about when Mr Townshend, who grew up in nearby Woodgrange Avenue, was looking for a home for his synthesisers and to leave a legacy for the next generation of creative artists .
Mr Townsend, who studied at Ealing School of Art which is now part of UWL, said: “It’s my hope that the studio will be a creative space for learning, collaboration, experimentation and play, inspired by the musical and artistic legacy of Ealing, an area integral to the development of British music in the 1960s.”
He added: “I was at an art school where the course was dedicated to breaking the rules and I just drafted that into my work as a guitar player. I came up with target t-shirts, Union Jack jackets, the arrow over the ‘O’ in the name The Who… it taught me about presentation and the importance of the client, or in my case, the audience.”
Mr Townshend has been working closely with the University’s academic and technical staff to design and build the studio.
Professor Peter John CBE, vice-chancellor of UWL said: “This is a unique resource for students and the wider public, uniting legacy and contemporary technologies. The studio will explore the potential for creative practice to inform and inspire beyond the arts and into the fields of science, technology, health, humanities and social science. Crucially, it will be an ideas hub for creative connections and collaborations locally, nationally and worldwide.”
 which is now home to a dozen of his synthesizers as well as other instruments played by Mr Townsend over his career which started in the 1960s.){kind=link}