Type Of Organisation: Participatory Arts / Music

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About

Evolve Music is a force for change in the South West: working directly with isolated and marginalised people and communities to enrich lives through sound and music exploration, and delivering sector development initiatives that ensure the community music sector locally and nationally is relevant, resilient and recognised.

At Evolve Music we love bringing people together to play, experiment and unleash their inner creativity through music and sound. 

Sound is our creative tool. This could be the sounds made by a musical instrument, the human body or something in the world around us. Anything really!?  We believe that the word ‘sound’ is more accessible and avoids preconceived connotations that the word music carries. You don’t need to be able to play a musical instrument or be a bedroom music producer. Sound is for everyone, and anyone can use it to tell a story, transport them to another world and as a tool to unlock a person’s innate creativity. 

We work in collaboration with communities, enabling them to have creative agency, learn new skills and experience exploring sound using a variety of traditional, world and electronic instruments. 

Facilitated by our highly skilled team of music leaders, our programmes immerse participants in a hands-on creative process where sounds are weaved together to create new music that speaks to and of the people who have created it. Our programmes are accessible to all who we work with and we ensure all barriers to participating are removed. You don’t need to have any prior musical experience to join in. 

We are proud of the impact our programmes have on developing communication, personal well-being and confidence among others. This is an extremely important part of our work and one which underpins our core values. 

In addition to our programme delivery we recognise that in order to provide high quality experiences for participants our music leaders need to be highly skilled in our creative delivery style. We are committed to providing CPD and networking opportunities for our team, as well as developing emerging music leaders through our training scheme. This is not only key to the development of our work across the South West but also to the community music landscape nationally. 

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What I / we help young people achieve

At Evolve Music we place young people at the centre of our co-creation approach. This allows us to be reactive, flexible and understand our participants, their needs and musical aspirations.

We use the ideas and experiences of the children and young people we work with to co-create new music in one to one or group settings. This approach enables young people to authentically explore sound and music giving them full ownership. Our methodology supports the development of communication, confidence, social and emotional wellbeing as well as advancing musical skills.

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Opportunities for children & young people

• To create / write music and / or lyrics
• To play, perform music with others
• To learn things about oneself , other subjects or life-skills through musical activity
• To work with and support other young musicians
• To develop their wellbeing

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Times

• Project based

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Working with special needs

At Evolve Music we have a highly skilled pool of freelance music leaders who can support young people with both physical and learning disabilities.

Our Sound Lab programme is a creative music project for young people (aged 14 – 19) with Autistic Spectrum Condition. Due to COVID-19 this currently being delivered online.

To find out more about this programme please visit our website www.evolvemusic.org.uk

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