Engaged music making with children
Inspiring Artists Programme 2024 is funded by the City of Edinburgh Council.
Inspiring Artists Programme is an opportunity for emerging musical artists to take part in a peer-learning project to develop new skills to facilitate, plan and deliver inclusive music projects for children and communities.
This year, our training programme is providing a paid mentored peer-learning space for six artists and songwriters, providing collaborative learning workshops, time and space to develop song writing, performance and leadership skills, and opportunities to put the training into practice in self-produced public workshops and events in school and community settings in Edinburgh. We want children to have opportunities to connect with the work of emerging music leaders who not only represent musical excellence but also reflect positively in terms of diversity, encouraging them to find inspiration for their own musical journeys and help them to better imagine their own pathways to making music.
Inspiring Artists is designed for artists who are traditionally underrepresented in the music leadership workforce, for example those who are self-taught or haven’t come through mainstream academic routes, are from ethnically diverse backgrounds, have disabilities or are neurodiverse.
We have focused the programme in this way because we think music education has gaps that can mean self-taught artists can sometimes not feel confident enough to demonstrate their skills in a learning environment. We recognise that our music leader workforce is not diverse enough in comparison to the demographic of our population and this lack of diversity is self-fulfilling. By supporting the development of a wider diversity of leadership, there is a much greater chance of further diversifying music participation, which will support our vision of “life enhancing music making for everyone”.
2024 participants
Chukwuma Agomuoh
Deborah Shaw – aka Aurora Engine
Lou Rowland – aka mokusla
Nat Cartier
Rachel Walker
Roseanne Reid
Our six emerging music leaders come from a wide range of musical backgrounds, and their music has its roots in Gaelic, traditional folk, pop, rock, rap, jazz, classical, electronic, country and blues. Four of the musicians are self-taught or haven’t had formal music development opportunities since they attended school.
The group developed a mini-festival performance which they took to Lorne Primary School in Edinburgh. The project was led and mentored by Love Music Artistic Director Stephen Deazley.
