Latest Youth Music Funding Awards Update - Fund B14

For our last Fund B round, we awarded 17 projects around the country a grant of up to £150,000 each.

Here’s a summary of some of the projects receiving investment – a complete list can be found at the end of this blog post. 

Open Up Music (National), will work with schools, Music Education Hubs and young disabled people to test and develop digital resources they have piloted in response to Covid19. Through this, they will digitise their Open Orchestras training and mentoring, reducing costs and enabling the programme to scale far beyond the number of orchestras they can currently support.

Southend YMCA  (East of England), will provide 24 months of diverse and quality music-making opportunities to young people in the communities they serve. They will offer a flexible approach, includingface-to-face sessions, online music sessions, performance & recording, employment opportunities for Young Music Leaders, and development for Community Musicians.

Generator (North East) will be running a two strand programme (First Notes), to support early career stage artists to professionalise their work through structured support towards releasing music and developing performance skills leading to a festival performance. They will also develop their workforce’s knowledge of diverse communities to embed better diversity and inclusive practices within Generator.

Music:Leeds (Yorkshire), will deliver Launchpad; anartist and music industry development programme. The programme will support artists, early career music professionals and new music enterprises in Yorkshire offering a combination of workshops, mentoring, funded project support, live performance opportunities and training.

Yorkshire Sound Women Network (Yorkshire & The Humber), will deliver a participatory music technology programme across Yorkshire called Wired For Sound. This will combine face-to-face and online activities, enabling girls and people of minority genders to develop creative music technology skills alongside expert women music leaders. An accompanying workforce development programme will help mitigate against unconscious gender bias in music education.

Take Art (South West), will be developing their Early Childhood music education programme, Making Bigger Waves. The programme will offer with training for current and future workforces, and will work in partnership with organisations across the South West and nationally including University of Plymouth, Centre for Research in Early Childhood, Southampton Music Hub, Soundstorm, Somerset County Council, Plymouth Music Education Hub, Dorset Music Service and Devon & Torbay Music Education Hubs.

You Press (London), will deliver a youth-led, 26-month music programme (The Collective 3), engaging three groups of aspiring artists. Participating artists (aged 13 – 25) will be vocalists, singers, producers and MCs from some of London's most deprived and marginalised communities.

Encore Enterprises (West Midlands), will consolidate & develop their youth-led music programme for Young Peopleaged 11-21 in Herefordshire. This will offer inclusive music engagement and skills development opportunities. Activities will include song-writing,recording andperformances through inclusive extra-curricular sessions, targeting disadvantaged, rurally-isolated young people, and young people facing a range of barriers. They will also offer training and development opportunities for the workforce.

SEND Project (East Midlands) will be running a music mentoring and network development programme; Sound & Vision, that will enrich the growth of the workforce and empower young musicians. This will involve a variety of creative opportunities such as professional music tuition, live showcases, recording, production and performance rehearsal.

Alder Hey Children's Charity (North West) will be delivering Minds Matter;a programme of music making activities with patients at Alder Hey addressing the emerging mental health crisis, post-COVID-19. The programme will develop a national framework for music delivery to support musicians working in paediatric mental health and test this learning through a wide-ranging programme of delivery.

DJ School UK (Yorkshire & The Humber) will offer an inclusive DJ Club for children and young people in Leeds. They will also offer training and CPD nationwide for those wanting to use DJ activities to engage children and young people in inclusive music-making.

Key Changes (National) will target low-income ethnic minority 18-25s experiencing mental illnesses (including recent hospital leavers). Participants will access 3-6 music studio mentoring sessions (supported by a professional music industry mentor); live performance opportunities, and online group sessions. 100 participants will progress to a 12-week programme of continuing artist development.

A full list of organisations that received funding in Fund B Round 14 funding are: Alder Hey Children's Charity, B Sharp, Bollo Brook Youth Centre, DJ School UK, Encore Enterprises CIC, Generator, Key Changes, Lincolnshire One Venues, Music:Leeds, OpenUp Music, Readipop, Romsey Mill, SEND Project, Southend YMCA, Take Art Limited, Yorkshire Sound Women, You Press.

These projects are funded using National Lottery investment via Arts Council England.

If you would like to know more about Youth Music and other funders’ grant awards, head to the 360 Giving website where you can access standardised grants data from many different funders.