Increasing access to the arts is and has been rightly on the agenda for a long time. The aim of allowing artforms often perceived as reserved for the “privileged”, to reach out and enrich the lives of more people no matter their background or circumstance, brings into question not only if we engage, but how we do it. As someone with a background and training in theatre, someone who did not have any music classes growing up, music in my home sounded more like 80s tunes on Top of the Pops than a bow on strings or a melody tapped out on a piano (with possible exceptions in the likes of Elton John or Dexy’s Midnight Runners). I suppose my point is that it didn’t seem in any way serious enough to qualify as “proper” music to me at the time.

Presumably because I didn’t have access to music classes, or any particular musical knowledge at home, I concluded at primary school age that “music” must just not be for me. I did, however, find drama, mainly through “role plays” of various characters from novels in English class or being a part of the school play. It was through this experience that I was led to the arts, and along the way, to a new relationship with music.

Whilst devising work and watching performances as part of my theatre studies, I began to realise the power and potential that music has to enrich stories. Seeing the likes of then-upcoming physical theatre companies such as DV8 and Complicité, I could appreciate music in a different way – suddenly able to immerse myself and relate. It made theatre more exciting, more engaging. As I look back, much of the music in performances I saw used traditional Western European instrumentation. Later this expanded to discovering other instruments, genres and musical worlds, all finding a home across a plethora of art forms and spaces, from stages to community centres. I began to consider live and recorded soundscapes within my own modest creations, inspired by Philip Glass, Max Richter and Lisa Gerrard as well as Nitin Sawhney, Orbital and Talvin Singh among many – to me, what they offered was in and of itself theatre, at least I connected with it on those terms.

As an arts producer, my path has now led me to working with orchestras, something I could never have anticipated earlier in my career. The opportunity to explore landscapes across artforms came about last year whilst meeting with Peter Smalley, CEO of Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust (NMPAT). As our conversation evolved, Eastern European folk music ensemble, Zingaresque, contemporary dance company, Dexterity, and contemporary chamber orchestra, London Sinfonietta all came together, and a new project was born. We wanted to create an environment where young musicians and dancers could form an experimental cross-artform, cross-genre group to devise sound and movement together. We shared ideas, dance and music repertoire and planned for a workshop series in Autumn 2022 with no idea what the creative product would be, only that we wanted to leap into the unknown and enjoy the process.

Everyone singing at the beginning of each session brought the cohort together:

The final performance in November 2022 combined re-interpreted music and dance repertoire with a new work devised by the participants and supported by the eminent talents of London Sinfonietta musicians.

In terms of our work at Orchestras Live, collaborating with our partners to offer children and young people early experiences of orchestral music both as audience members, but also as creators of music is crucial in the long term. It is my belief that every child should have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument and progress on this creative journey if they so wish. For some, the pathway and where their creative passion lies may not look like this. Finding myriad ways to open the door to music at various stages in our creative lives enables a genuine engagement for which being, or even wanting to be a musician is not necessarily a pre-requisite. I still don’t play a musical instrument, but music has and will continue to enrich my life wherever and whenever I have the occasion to engage with it.