A new generation of rock musicians, many writing and performing their own material, have been chosen to represent Britain at a first international Teen Rock Festival in New York.

The Powerjam Project, which brings together youngsters from across Richmond and Twickenham, caught the eye of the festival's organisers after posting material online during the pandemic.

The not-for-profit project forms bands with youngsters aged 9-18, who rehearse weekly, gig regularly and now record and release original music.

The project is run by founder and creative director, Anna Texier, and Dr Andrei Sora, who is the co-director and in-house music producer.

And it continues south west London's long celebrated contribution to the world of rock and pop, dating back to the 1960s and Eel Pie island, which hosted early performances of greats from The Rolling Stones to a teenage David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, the Who and Pink Floyd.

The Powerjam team said: "During the pandemic, over the many lockdowns, we had to find new ways of engaging our young musicians, as gigs were not happening and rehearsing online as bands was nearly impossible.

"We therefore focused on songwriting sessions and established Powerjam Recordings in 2020, a label that allows young musicians to retain full copyrights to their songs.

"The bands would write songs during the online sessions that we then professionally recorded, released, and marketed on all streaming platforms.

"In order to market the releases, we also had to ramp up our social media presence and basically take everything online.

"Thanks to this concerted effort, the bands are not only learning about the release process, but have collectively achieved over 250,000 streams across all platforms of their music since 2020."

The team said: "This is how the festival organisers in New York found Powerjam. They came across our releases, Youtube videos, and social media, were impressed with the standard of our young bands, their performances and releases, and reached out to us to invite Powerjam to participate.

"We're all obviously really excited."

This will be the first-ever International Teen Rock Festival in New York City and will raise money through UNICEF for 'Kids in Crisis'.

Each participating band will get to perform on three stages over three days – one outdoors and two indoors - with teen bands from countries around the world.

Significantly, each of the three stages will be live streamed so that each band's country can watch and support.

The Powerjam team said: "It's an amazing educational experience where they can share the love of music with like-minded young musicians from different backgrounds and cultures."

It is not yet clear which Powerjam bands will be going, but the team said: "At the very least one of our bands will be participating and representing Powerjam and the UK.

"And we hope that especially the Richmond/Twickenham community will be proud of the young talent emerging from our area, especially considering its rich music heritage."

A show featuring many of the young bands at The Crawdaddy Club on Friday this week – Maschina, elastic parade, Nobody for President, minor revelation, Late in Tokyo and Bunch of Noise - is sold out. But there will be plenty of other chances to see them at festivals and venues across the area this year.

The details about the New York festival live-stream have not yet been released, but Powerjam will be posting updates on its social media feeds once it is.

Their Instagram.

Their Youtube.

Their Facebook.