1. Who are The Choir With No Name?

The Choir with No Name is a charity that runs choirs for people who have experienced homelessness. We have three choirs so far: two in London, and one in Birmingham. Our choir members rehearse once a week, always sharing a hot healthy meal together afterwards – and we perform in public regularly too. Too many homeless people are isolated and lonely, this often being the reason they have 'fallen through the gaps' and become homeless in the first place, and we tackle this through choral singing.

2. How will the BBC Performing Art Fund Community Music grant help the group?

The grant is going to help us to record an EP in professional recording studios and release it for public sale. This will be a fantastic, confidence-building experience for our members – and it will also help showcase the positivity and talents of our choir members to the general public, helping shatter stereotypes about homeless people everywhere. We’re very excited about it!

3. Tell us about the best day The Choir With No Name has had to date?

We’ve had a lot of good days, but probably our best one was our Christmas gig, last December at London’s Union Chapel. It was wonderful to bring together our North London and Birmingham choirs again in front of a large audience – and we witnessed the first performance ever of our fledgling South London choir. They only had 8 (nervous) members at the time, and got the biggest cheer of the night for their only song, ‘White Christmas’. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

4. What was the best reaction from the group when they found out about winning the
PAF grant?

“Can we record it at Abbey Road?!”

5. Give us 3 words that describe a performance by The Choir With No Name

Uplifting, unique, and funny!

To find out more about the Choir with No Name and what they will be up to, you can visit their website, Facebook and Twitter page.

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Meet the Winners is a feature introducing you to some of the groups and individuals who have recently received a grant from the BBC Performing Arts Fund. We get to hear about so many fantastic projects and people who are keeping the performing arts alive in the UK, that we thought you should know about them too.

 

1. Who are Southampton Choral Society?

We are a group of men and women who passionately enjoy singing and we want to share our delight in classical music with other people.  Our choir came together in 1943, so we have quite a long history, in fact over forty of our singers have been members for more than twenty years. Officially we exist for the purpose of giving concerts, but our choir is far more than an assembly of 135 performers.  We come together on Monday evenings to learn about the minds and emotions of composers and bring their creations to life. We drink tea and laugh and talk and care about each other. 

2. How will the BBC Performing Art Fund Community Music grant help the group?

We have commissioned a new work to be written especially for Southampton Choral Society and we want to share the fun and pleasure we have in giving a concert with people who do not usually have the opportunity do this sort of thing. We have invited participants from a diverse community – a Gospel Choir, two groups of sufferers of cancer and Parkinson’s Disease, secondary school choristers, a community choir, and a wheelchair-bound group of children from a Special School.  We have invited a celebrity soloist to join us and it promises to be a very exciting date.

3. Tell us about the best day Southampton Choral Society  has had to date?

Our best day?  It might have been the moment of stunned silence when we ended the Mozart Requiem in Romsey Abbey, or the loud "Wow!" from a member of  the audience at our last Messiah performance.  Most choir members would say our best day was singing with Dame Emma Kirkby and discovering that we were good enough to support such an outstanding soloist.

4. What was the best reaction from the group when they found out about winning the  PAF grant?

It was a new choral sound which no composer  could write down – about eight seconds of cheers, wows, clapping, smiles and hugs.

5. Give us 3 words that describe a performance by Southampton Choral Society

Our performance goes from ppp to fff -- passionate, professional, progressive, to formidable, fresh and friendly.

To keep up to date with what the Southampton Choral Society, visit their website and Facebook page.

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Meet the Winners is a feature introducing you to some of the groups and individuals who have recently received a grant from the BBC Performing Arts Fund. We get to hear about so many fantastic projects and people who are keeping the performing arts alive in the UK, that we thought you should know about them too.

 

 

Youth Music distributes over £9 million annually through the Youth Music Programme. The Programme provides funding for organisations to enable them to transform the musical experiences of young people.

The programme is underpinned by the Youth Music Network which is an online community for people who work in and around music education projects in the UK.  Free to join, the Youth Music Network is a space for professionals to access and share a huge range of music education.

What funding is offered?

Our grant making is structured around modules rather than individual programmes.  Each module is linked to a set of intended outcomes that address an identified issue or need.  Learning and participation modules encourage the growth and development of high quality music activities that impact directly on children and young people’s lives (aged 0-18, or up to 25 in special circumstances). These are direct delivery projects that achieve outcomes around young people’s musical, personal, social and emotional skills.

Strengthening the sector modules aim to encourage a stronger youth music sector by embedding capacity and expertise to support our goals (and those of a wider National Plan for Music Education) through activity that builds partnerships and collaborations, practice sharing and workforce development.

Applicants can apply for up to five modules in each funding round.  The current Youth Music Programme modules are as follows:

1. Creating Environments for Musical Progression
2. Early Years Children at Elevated Risk
3. Elevated Risk
4. Music-based Mentoring
5. Open Module (applicants must meet one of our programme focus areas of Challenging Circumstances, Early Years and/or Encouraging Talent and Potential)
6. Young Music Leadership
7. Excellence through group singing
8. Networking: Building and maintaining networks *Limited availability – please contact funding.enquiries@youthmusic.org.uk for more information
9. Spotlighting: Enabling the sharing of effective practice

How do you go about applying?

Full details of how to apply can be found on the funding section the Youth Music Network website

Is there a deadline?

There are two application deadlines per year – the next one is on Wednesday 27th March 2013.

Is there a minimum or maximum to the amount of funding organisations can apply for?

In any one funding round you can apply for up to a maximum of £250,000 and you can hold no more than £350,000 worth of active Youth Music grants.

What are the eligibility criteria that organisations have to meet in order to apply?

In order to apply, we require you and your organisation to:

 - Be based in the United Kingdom.

- Represent either a registered charity; a not-for-profit organisation; or a profit-sharing organisation who is applying for a self-contained music project that will not make profits for the organisation, and demonstrates a clear benefit to the public.

- Be from an organisation that has been legally constituted for at least one year.

- Supply the following documents to support your application:
a. Most recent set of accounts, dated no more than 18 months old.
b. An equal opportunities policy and a child protection policy.
c. Your employers’ and public liability insurance.

- Propose work that will engage and benefit participants based in England.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Ayo Ogunwumiju - Grants and Learning Team at the National Foundation for Youth Music funding.enquiries@youthmusic.org.uk

 

We can't give away too much right now but here are a few things we can tell you:

- We WILL have a community theatre scheme [see Community Dance for how this might run]

- We WILL have a fellowship scheme [see Music Fellowships for what this might look like]

- We WON’T be funding student tuition fees (but you might want to read this blog & maybe have a look at this opportunity over at IdeasTap if that is what you are after). 

- We WILL be giving £450,000 in funding to theatre this year

- We ARE very excited!

 
You can still come to us for gems related to music, dance and the performing arts in general - but anyone who has been waiting patiently for a theatre grant to sink your teeth into will soon be rewarded.

"Theatre" means many different things to many different people so we'll need a bit of consultation from you along the way to help us break it down and analyse it from every angle. We'll be asking you questions from time to time on Facebook so make sure you are following us if you want to give us your thoughts.

Right, that's enough from us for now. We'll be back soon with an update, in the meantime - go forth and perform!

 

1. Who are 'The Band'?

The Band is a musical ensemble made up of 15-19 year olds from South London. All instruments and levels of experience are welcomed, including Western and non-Western instruments, singers and MCs, ensuring that the group is as inclusive as possible. Led and tutored by members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the group come together to create their own music for high profile community performances that happen frequently across the year.  Each week the members take inspiration from blues, hip hop, reggae, soul and many more styles to create their own new tracks… with a classical twist.

Through The Band, the London Philharmonic Orchestra predominantly work with teenagers in the Orchestra’s home boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth, Lewisham and Greenwich. Members of The Band come from a range of backgrounds, and many would not normally have the opportunity to create their own music alongside their peers, so the sessions are a unique opportunity to experience and perform live contemporary music and have contact with professional musicians and workshop leaders. It is widely recognised that being a member of such an ensemble has both musical and social benefits as well as boosting the members’ self-confidence and self-esteem.

2. How will the BBC Performing Art Fund Community Music grant help the group?

The BBC Performing Arts Fund grant will enable The Band to run at full capacity for the December to February project.

The legacy of The Band and this project is to embed the group in the communities the members reside in. Although a LPO-managed group, we want the members themselves to feel ownership over the work and activities. By taking this work out into the communities we want to raise the profile of its activities and the opportunities on offer to young people in South London, and encourage more people to benefit from membership of the group.

The grant will help deliver the project’s aims of providing a nurturing and supportive environment where young people can experiment with and create music, get involved with inspirational performance opportunities and regularly work alongside LPO musicians. It will also continue to develop the valuable skills that members can use in their ongoing personal development, such as collaboration, leadership and personal reflection.

3. Tell us about the best day 'The Band' has had to date?

4. What was the best reaction from the group when they found out about winning the
PAF grant?

The next performance by The Band takes place on Saturday 22 February at Royal Festival Hall. The performance will be of their original collective composition titled Three Places in South London which has been inspired by American composer Charles Ives’ Three Places in New England, which the Orchestra will be performing that night. At the first rehearsal session for this performance one member said:

“I am so excited that because of the grant we get to do the full amount of creative sessions in the run up to our next performance. I enjoy coming along to play with people my age and appreciate learning from and getting to know the LPO musicians.”

5. Give us 3 words that describe a performance by The Band

Electric, exhilarating, inspirational.

You can follow The Band's progress by joining the LPO on Twitter or finding them on Facebook.

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Meet the Winners is a feature introducing you to some of the groups and individuals who have recently received a grant from the BBC Performing Arts Fund. We get to hear about so many fantastic projects and people who are keeping the performing arts alive in the UK, that we thought you should know about them too.

Our Youth Work

This summer the Step Up group, one of Mimbre’s more advanced youth groups, had a fantastic time performing in different arts events across Hackney and London. They created a show called ‘Origin: London’ , which turned out to be a huge success. It premiered at Chats Palace and started the summer tour on the Big Dance Bus at Woodberry Down Estate. The show went to the London Youth Dance Shoreditch Festival, Big Dance – a Mimbre Event, Torch Relay, and The National Theatre, plus the group was part of an Australian film promoting England and the Olympics to Australia.

This was a very intense project. Before we could start the programme we had to ensure that the group worked well together and that the young people were dedicated and committed to the rehearsals and performances scheduled. The Step Up group was created from committed or talented members who were passionate about performing and were made up from all of Mimbre’s youth groups. 

The best advice that we can offer to a director or choreographer working with young people, is to create a performance that can be adapted to suit different numbers of young people and situations. It was impossible for the entire Step Up group to make it to every performance, so we had to adapt the show, often at the very last minute.  Teaching the young people free styling skills and making sure that they were confident to improvise was very important too.

Getting family members involved in the shows and events really supported the group and meant practitioners could focus more on the performance rather than behaviour. It also meant that the young people were more likely to come along, as their parents were engaged in what they were doing.

The best day by far for the young people was when Mimbre teamed up with local charity Immediate Theatre and took part in the torch Relay parade. Wearing ‘I love Hackney’ costumes the group danced from Hyde Road N1 to Church Street N16. The parents didn’t get away either! Through the parade the young people and their parents celebrated the Olympics in London and promoted the spirit of the games through dance, acrobatics and a lot of screaming. And to top it all off after the march, the young people were introduced to an official torch bearer and were all invited to take pictures holding an official Olympic torch. They loved it.  

The group have come a long way from the start of the summer tour. The once shy group of young people, most of whom were too shy to dance in class, performed in front of thousands of people throughout the summer and even began to look up at the audience, enjoy themselves and smile.

Can’t wait to do it all again next summer."