OpenUp Music
This week we have officially launched OpenUp Music - a new organisation with a new vision for disabled-led music.
On a dull and overcast March morning back in 2013 I made a lot of phone calls. In total I contacted about 50 different schools, all situated in the Southwest of England, to ask them if they had a school orchestra. Just over 50% of the mainstream secondary schools I spoke to told me that they had one - not a single special school did. To add insult to injury at least two of the receptionists I spoke to from those special schools actually laughed at the question, with one asking me if I was aware that their school was ‘special’.
Unfortunately there is nothing special about what I found out that morning. Across the UK there are very few orchestras within special schools (we haven't found any beyond our own work but please let us know if you have!) There appear to be even less youth ensembles outside of school that make provision for the young disabled musicians we work with (Youth Ensembles Survey Report 2014 - Association of British Orchestras); and there are currently no disabled-led regional or national youth orchestras. It was this tragic paucity of provision, expectation and musical progression that led to the creation of OpenUp Music, an organisation we are officially launching this week.
OpenUp Music has a simple mission – to open up youth orchestras, musical instruments and musical repertoire to young disabled musicians. Last year (with funding from the National Foundation for Youth Music, Summerfield Charitable Trust, Bruce Wake Charitable Trust, Zurich Community Trust and Woodward Charitable Trust) we established three of the UK’s first special school orchestras, culminating in a landmark performance at the Bristol Colston Hall in the summer of 2014.
I am really proud to announce that a short film documenting that incredible project has just been launched on our brand new website www.openupmusic.org.
The website also sets out our plan to create a significant musical progression route for young disabled musicians over the next 3 years.
Whilst continuing to encourage the establishment of orchestras within special schools across the UK we are also set to establish the UK’s first disabled-led regional youth orchestra, the Southwest Open Youth Orchestra, in September 2015. Beyond this we are aiming high with our stated aim of establishing the worlds first disabled-led national youth orchestra, the National Open Youth Orchestra, in 2018 - opening up a musical progression route that stretches all the way from school to professional institutions like our partners the iconic British Paraorchestra.
If you get the chance please check out our new website, our new documentary film and connect with us via Facebook, Twitter and through our mailing list (available at the bottom of our new website) to stay up to speed.