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A blog from the Sound and Music Team

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8 March 2019

On International Women’s Day 2019

By Susanna Eastburn, Chief Executive, Sound and Music A version of this blog also appeared in the Guardian on the 8 March 2019. Two years ago today, Sound and Music (the UK’s national organisation for new music) made a public pledge to achieve gender equality across all of our work with composers and artists, under […]

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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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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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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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19 December 2016

Thoughts on the New Voices networking day

Earlier this month, Sound and Music got together with a number of the current New Voices cohort in Birmingham to talk, learn and share… “From musical guilty pleasures, ethics around digital publishing, or Morris dancing with live electronics (a ‘serious’ concept or not? You decide…), I left the New Voices networking days feeling incredibly stimulated […]

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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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22 June 2016

How can we help pupils Listen, Imagine and Compose?

I come from a generation of musicians who didn’t get much opportunity to compose.  Like many young musicians getting to grips with playing their instruments, I did a lot of “noodling” in my practice time and even committed some of it to paper.  I did the old O’ Level, which involved writing perfect cadences and […]

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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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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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25 November 2014

Adam Cooper on Sound and Music’s Christmas Crowdfunder

We’ve been told that arts organisations can’t do crowd-funders, AND that it’s impossible to run more than one crowdfunder at a time. Naturally, as a new music organisation keen on pushing boundaries and breaking down assumptions, we’ve decided to disregard all of this advice! We are raising money to fund three life-changing opportunities for three […]

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23 July 2014

The Questions Informing our Toolkit for Exporting

Yesterday we blogged about the development of our toolkit for working internationally. Here are some of the issues we are talking to people about as we build the toolkit. We would love your thoughts on any of these issues either in the comments section on the blog, or on twitter mentioning the tag #samexport or […]

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16 July 2014

A call to action for female nominations for the British Composer Awards

Please can we move away from all-male composer award-winners? Friday is the deadline for the British Composer Awards. Last year, all the award-winners were male. Recently the Royal Philharmonic Society announced the five 2014 winners of their Composition Prize for under-29 years old composers, and they are all male too. I am not questioning the […]

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11 July 2014

Sounding Out: Digital – Audiences Online and New Platforms

As part of the New Music Biennial 2014, last weekend Sound and Music hosted two symposiums on the themes of online audiences and new platforms at the London Southbank Centre, and streamed online by Hugs Bison. Saturday’s panel was on the latest developments in online platforms, and how the new music community can best utilise them. It […]

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1 July 2014

What Next?

Since starting at Sound and Music a few months ago it has always been important to me that Sound and Music puts artists first; nurturing a thriving community, which is evident even on the Sampler blog. Through becoming a part of this community over the last few months, I know how much many of you care about […]

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26 June 2014

Portfolio partner EXAUDI

As part of Sound and Music’s Portfolio programme, 4 composers have the chance to work with EXAUDI to develop a piece for quartet of voices – soprano, counter-tenor, tenor and bass. For composers wanting to explore the capabilities of the voice in detail this is a fantastic opportunity to work closely with exceptional singers, with […]

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