Latest Youth Music Funding Awards Update - Trailblazer Fund Round 1

For our first Trailblazer Fund, we awarded 39 projects around the country a grant of up to £30,000 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. 

The African French Speaking Community Support (West Midlands) will extending their current Music Tuition to more young people in order to make the scheme more inclusive and diverse.

Digit Music (National) has created Cmpsr and Arrow Notes, an innovative digital instrument and notation system designed to make accessing music equitable and connect to contemporary music styles. The programme aims to recuirt a youth board and to train up young leaders to earn whilst delivering into SEND and PRU settings. 

Everybody Loves Music CIC (London) will have a programme called Check, Reflect, Create (CRC) offering young people aged 11-19 known to youth offending within Enffield Crime Prevention Education through therapeutic, creative interventions such as music production and creative writing as a tool to challenge and explore the reasons for committing offences. 

Hastings Fat Tuesday Ltd (South East) will be developing the Hastings Fat Tuesday Youth Curatorial Panel. They'll be launching 'Fat Tuesday Sonics Club', delivering youth music sessions for 12-18 year old's in electronic, experimental and DJ based music. They'll also be launching bi-monthly 'Under the Radar Sonics' gigs as well as a 2023 Summer Youth Music Festival. 

Hotbox Live Events (East of England) will be running accessible hip hop workshops and performance oportunities for disadvantaged youths mentored by a respected hip hop artist. Together with peers facing barriers in the community they will explore hip hop poetry and be supported to express their thoughts and feelings through words, rhythms and structure to a hip hop beat. 

In Music In Media Ltd (East Midlands) will be creating a physical/virtual creative space to house an audio and visual production suite with performance space which will accomodate commercially packaging young people music and source placement opportunities with an online platform to support aspiring musicians and stream a live feed from the production suite. 

In2Change South Yorkshire Limited (Yorkshire & The Humber) will run a pilot music mentorship programme for disengaged young people who access In2Change. This alternative learning project will give students real opportunities, not just paper qualifications. They will decide their final output, supported by off-site visits to create venues, 1:1s with a mentor and self-expression workshops run with guest artists. 

Love Music Trust (North West) will run 'Hear Me', a programme using story capture, song writing, recording and performance to explore young people's experiences, challenges and aspirations. Hear Me provide young people with the opportunity to record their music as part of an EP to be sold and raise funds, launced through a live EP performance event. 

Maines-Beasley Creative Industries Ltd (North East) will be using music, movement and therapy animals with two year olds, their practioners and carers at Riverside Sure Start in North Shields. 

Young People Cornwall (South West) will be running Sound Waves, a test and learn project to bring musical opportunities, progression and expression to young people in Truro and St Austell, Cornwall, who face barriers socially, economically and due to trauma. They consulted young people who stated they wanted targeted group work, open access music sessions and music mentoring. 

A full list of organisations that received funding in Trailblazer Fund Round 1 are: African French Speaking Community Support (AFSCS), ASPIRE2, Blue Cabin, Break Tha Cycle, Brink Productions Limited, Community Music Co-operative CIC, CreateED CIC, Daisy Inclusive UK, Digit Audio Technology Ltd, Diversity Music Community 1st, Drywave Recovery CIC, Everybody Loves Music CIC, Fosse Way School, Future Inclusions Organisation, Hastings Fat Tuesday Ltd, Head to Toe Charity, Hotbox Live Events, Hybrid3 Social Enterprise, In Music In Media Ltd, IN2CHANGE SOUTH YORKSHIRE LTD, Inspiring Music, Love Music Trust, Maines-Beasley Creative Industries Ltd, Mini Mindful Musicians Ltd, Noise Academy Ltd, Otakar Kraus Music Trust, Patchwork Studios, Picture the Difference CIC, Prospex, QUARRY Sound Liverpool CIC, Rio Ferdinand Foundation, Special Needs and Parent Support CIO (SNAPS), Streets of Growth, The Bromsgrove Youth and Community Hub, Wapping Youth FC, Winchester Street Reach, Wipers Youth CIC, YMCA Crewe, Young People Cornwall

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.