notes.

A blog from the Sound and Music Team

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5 June 2020

We paused, we must now act – how fair access has to be at the heart of the new normal

On 25 February 2020, Sound and Music launched our Fair Access Principles. Developed and tested over many months with composers and partner organisations, their aim is to remove the many non-musical barriers that can prevent composers from fairly accessing artist development opportunities and programmes. Less than a month later, the UK went into lockdown, causing […]

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9 February 2018

We are the change that we seek

My journey through the Audience Diversity Academy has been an important and thought provoking step in my career as an audience development specialist. It has allowed me to step away from my own personal views and practices and honestly and transparently assess my own approach to audience diversity, my organisations approach and the sectors approach. […]

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Learning, adapting and growing together

Over the past 2 months I have begun to initiate and deploy the first set of newly developed audience data capture forms to the talented artists on Sound and Music’s Composer-Curator touring programme. This experiment aims to give these grassroots artists the tools to capture insightful audience data, including around diversity, from their own events […]

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23 June 2017

“Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.”

In applying for the AMA Audience Diversity Academy, I set myself a series of professional and personal goals, namely to analyse and test ways in which I can contribute to Sound and Music’s ongoing aim to  address the issue and continued lack of diversification in the new music sector.  A key concern is ensuring that […]

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12 June 2017

Some Thoughts on Coaching and Mentoring

“Mentoring is for the mentee. Most of all for the mind of the mentee. I think that Mentoring needs to focus on and develop the mentee’s finest independent thinking about their work, their career, their life, their dreams. The Mentor’s perspective is an important ingredient in this special relationship. But it feeds. It is not […]

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6 March 2017

50:50 by 2020

To mark International Women’s Day 2017, Sound and Music make the following commitment: By March 2020, at least 50% of the composers we work with will identify as women ***************************************************************** It’s hard to pinpoint cause and effect, but in conversations with other female leaders in the sector, a number of us have noticed a creeping […]

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21 February 2017

Want to work with us? Call for partners

We’re changing the way we select partners. We want to work with partners who share the same values as us, specifically around diversity, including gender, along with a shared approach to audience development and data insight. We want to work with partners who can create a supportive and valuable experience for composers. From ensembles, soloists, […]

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18 September 2016

New Music – Audience Survey the Results

Back in July we conducted our second New Music Audience Survey –  to find out more about interactions with new music audiences, from ‘you’ the people creating and producing the work. We wanted to know how things were going. How you were engaging with audiences, both online and offline. If audiences for your work had changed, […]

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17 May 2016

What works for you when teaching composing in the classroom?

I was delighted to be invited to host a recent MufuChat on the theme: “What works for you when teaching composing in the classroom?” I was also interested to know more about: What sorts of starting points do you use for composing How do you handle the transition from group to individual composing (for exam purposes) […]

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14 May 2016

Learning from artists – let’s try it.

Audience Development When writing about audience development in the context of art organisations, the first question that springs to mind is whether there is anything left to say. Personally, the prospect of another workshop, seminar or even the very words ‘audience development’ makes me sigh. It isn’t that I’m bored of discussing this topic − […]

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22 March 2016

Because it’s 2016

Because it’s 2016 “When asked why he’s chosen equal numbers of men and women (for his cabinet), the second youngest Canadian PM simply answered: ‘Because it’s 2015’.” This cartoon sums up, for me, the conversation that’s been has been going on in the funded music sector (for at least the last 30 years) around diversity […]

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2 February 2015

“I thought all composers were dead and with a beard” – Susanna Eastburn on our second Composers’ Conference

What’s the collective noun for “composer’? This was a question we at Sound and Music found ourselves asking as we embarked on our second Composers’ Conference, just before Christmas. 55 composers attended, all of them directly involved with one or other of Sound and Music’s programmes. We organised it so that the composers themselves could […]