Youth Music charity invests £1.2m in new approaches to music in schools

PRESS RELEASE

23^RD April, 2014

 

 

YOUTH MUSIC INVESTS £1.2M IN NEW APPROACHES TO MUSIC EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS

 

 

Ten pioneering ‘Exhanging Notes’ projects awarded grants to explore new collaborative approaches to music education in schools for young people at risk

 

 

The National Foundation for Youth Music today announced grants totalling £1,195,308 to support new partnerships between schools and music education providers who normally work in out-of-school settings.  Investment of up to £120,000 is being made available to music projects delivered by these new partnerships.

 

Projects benefiting from funding include Leeds based charity, Opera North working in Winifred Holtby Academy in Hull, Kinetika Bloco working in St Gabriel’s College, Lambeth, London, and Derbyshire Music Education Hub, which will work across the Virtual Schools Network in Derbyshire.

 

The ‘Exchanging Notes’ initiative aims to establish if this collaborative approach brings additional benefits for young people at risk of low attainment, disengagement or educational exclusion. Over a four year period, Birmingham City University will be undertaking a rigorous study of the ten projects to evaluate the educational, musical and other outcomes of these new models of partnerships for the pupils involved. It will also examine how the distinctive educational approaches used in schools and out-of-school settings might be combined to improve young people’s educational outcomes and encourage the exchange of ideas, practice and understanding of effective music teaching techniques between practitioners working in these different settings.

 

This action research project follows publication of Youth Music’s ‘Communities of Music Education’ pilot study which highlighted some of the key differences in music education experienced outside and inside the classroom. The study noted that the teaching style used in the out-of-school music projects placed an equal focus on personal and social outcomes as well as musical outcomes. The findings also indicated that partnership-working between different settings was a positive and valuable process with practitioners recognising strengths in different methods of delivery.

 

Derbyshire Music Education Hub, in partnership with Derbyshire ‘Virtual School’ and delivery partner organisation Baby People, was awarded a grant of £120,000 to bring care and education professionals together with specialist music providers to support children in care. The programme will use music education to improve social and emotional resilience amongst the young participants from twenty schools across the county and increase their academic achievement.   There will also be a focus group for music leaders, teachers and supporters to share learning. A toolkit with case studies, practice notes, impact, evidence and signposts will be produced.

 

Jayne Briggs, School Improvement Adviser, Derbyshire Music Education Hub says: “We are delighted that Youth Music is providing this opportunity for us to work with our Virtual School in an action research study, using music-making to engage and motivate young people in challenging circumstances. Narrowing the gap between the attainment of children in care and all young people is a high priority for Derbyshire. Our approach will be for our delivery partners, Baby People, to use music to harness the interests and personal passion of the young people to help drive their learning and show improvements in their attainment across the curriculum.”

 

Opera North and Winifred Holtby Academy, located on the Bransholme estate north of Hull, have been awarded a grant of £120,000 to work with pupils who suffer socio-economic disadvantage and face low attainment.  Opera North's approach will use the voice as a way into musical learning, with a focus on classical music styles although folk, gospel, jazz and popular genres will also be included.

 

Kinetika Bloco, in partnership with Sound Connections and Lambeth Music Education Hub, was awarded a grant of £120,000 to work with Saint Gabriel’s College in Lambeth, London to deliver a programme of music and leadership opportunities. Participants will receive tuition on percussion, steel pan, woodwind and brass instruments and over 600 young people will be involved. The aim of the project is to develop a Bloco in-school model which joins up formal and non-formal music-making to empower young people through activities that develop their creative life skills and transform their educational attainment.

 

Matt Griffith says:  “In designing the Exchanging Notes programme, we encouraged schools, music organisations and local music education hubs to work together. The range of applications we received has shown us how vibrant our music education system can be with, in many cases, very creative ideas for partnership working. We look forward to the outcome of this action research project with great excitement as it is the first time such a rigorous study of combined approaches between schools and music providers, who normally work in out-of-school settings, has been done. The results may well turn out to be of enormous significance to stimulate fresh thinking in music education and support the aspirations set out in the National Plan for Music Education.”

 

 

Further details about the grants awarded under the  ‘Exchanging Notes’ programme can be found at http://network.youthmusic.org.uk/exchangingnotes

 

 PIC ATTACHED:  Caption:  Kinetika Bloco musicians lead TeamGB in the Greatest Team Parade, London 2012 Olympics

 

NOTES FOR EDITORS

ABOUT YOUTH MUSIC

 

·         Youth Music believes that music-making is life-changing and the charity wants the opportunity for music-making to be available to all children.   Every year, Youth Music provides more than 90,000 young people with the chance to take part in a local music project. 

 

·         Many of these children and young people face challenges in their lives including coping with disability, homelessness or living in care.  Others simply need help to develop their full musical talent and potential.

 

·         In addition to developing musical skills, Youth Music projects help young people to develop their creative and social skills, make positive contributions to their community and live happy, successful lives. Youth Music projects work across all music genres.

 

·         Youth Music currently supports over 400 music projects around the country.

 

·         The charity knows that many more young people still need its help and continues to fundraise to realise its mission to ensure that all children and young people have access to life-changing music-making opportunities.

 

·         Find out more about the work of Youth Music by visiting www.youthmusic.org.uk

 

For enquiries about Youth Music please contact:

 

David O’Keeffe,

Media and PR Consultant,

Youth Music

 

E:   david.okeeffe@youthmusic.org.uk

T:   0207 902 1096

M:  07977 067576.

 

For the projects mentioned please contact:

1.Kinetika Bloco:

 

Tamzyn French

Bloco Manager

Kinetika Bloco

E: tamzyn@kinetikabloco.co.uk 

T: 07795142535

 

www.kinetikabloco.co.uk 

 

2. Derbyshire Music Education Hub

Jayne Briggs

School Improvement Adviser

with responsibility for the

Derby & Derbyshire Music Partnership  -  Leading the Music Education Hub for Derbyshire

T: 01629 532871

E: Jayne.Briggs@derbyshire.gov.uk

3. Opera North

Rebecca Walsh,

Education Director

Opera North

Tel:  0113 243 9999

E:Rebecca.Walsh@operanorth.co.uk

 

 

 

David O’Keeffe
Media and PR Consultant
..........................................................
National Foundation for Youth Music

T 020 7902 1096

M :07977 067576

website     twitter    facebook

Join us in supporting life-changing music-making.

Donate here

..........................................................................
Suites 3-5, Swan Court, 9 Tanner Street, London, SE1 3LE
Registered charity 1075032
...........................................................................

 

 

 

Fwd: Music SIG Seminar Wed 9 July, 12-1pm in room 938

 

Music Education Special Interest Group

 

Research Seminar Announcement

 

 

Images-schemas and communicative musicality in early infancy: the bodily bases of musical meaning

Isabel Cecilia Martinez, Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, Argentina

 

Wednesday 9^th July 2014

 

12-1pm

 

Room 938

 

Further details from Graham Welch, g.welch@ioe.ac.uk

 

All are welcome

 

Image-schemas are recurrent, dynamic instantiations of sensory-motor activity that bring at once “embodied” and “mental” non-conscious, emotional, preverbal meaning to human experience. It is assumed that the origins of image-schemas can be traced as far back as early infancy, emerging in the context of communicative musicality. Every-day adult-infant multimodal interactions would thus provide the enactive scenario where these embodied structures begin to develop in cognition. The talk presents the results of microanalytical data of adult-infant interaction in contexts of communicative musicality where those structures seem to emerge, and then seeks to follow through their developmental path to adult music cognition.

Isabel Cecilia Martínez carried out her PhD in Music, Psychology and Education, at the Department of Music Education, Roehampton Surrey University, UK. She is Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, where she teaches undergraduate courses on Ear Training and Methodology of Higher Music Education and Teacher Training, and master and doctoral courses as well. She is the Director of the Laboratory for the Study of Musical Experience (LEEM) a Music Research Unit recently created at the UNLP. She leads a research team on Embodied Music Cognition, supervising MA, PhD, and post doctoral students. Her research interest focuses on embodied music cognition: perception, performance and development. She is the current President of SACCoM (Argentine Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music).

 

Seminar announcement: Johanna Devaney and Michael Mandel in ENG 209 on 5/2/2014

Dear all,

On Friday, May 2nd at 2:00pm, Johanna Devaney and Michael Mandel, of
Ohio State University, will present two seminars back-to-back,
entitled "Analyzing recorded vocal performances" and "Strong models
for understanding sounds in mixtures", respectively, in ENG 2.09 (the
Engineering building) at Queen Mary University of London, Mile End
Road, London E1 4NS. Details of the talks follow.

Information on how to access the school can be found at
http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/about/campus-map.php. If you are coming
from outside Queen Mary, please let me know, so that I can provide
detailed directions and make sure no-one is stuck outside the doors.
If you wish to be added to / removed from our mailing list as an
individual recipient, please send me an email and I'll be happy to do
so.

**

Speaker 1: Johanna Devaney

Title: Analyzing Recorded Vocal Performances

Abstract:

A musical performance can convey both the musicians' interpretation of
the written musical score as well as emphasize, or even manipulate,
the emotional content of the music through small variations in timing,
dynamics, tuning, and timbre. This talk presents my work on
score-guided automatic musical performance analysis, as well as my
investigations into vocal intonation practices. The score-audio
alignment algorithm I developed to estimate note locations makes use
of a hybrid DTW-HMM multi-pass approach that is able to capture onset
and offset asynchronies between simultaneously notated chords in
polyphonic music. My work on vocal intonation practices has examined
both solo and ensemble singing, with a particular focus on the role of
musical training, the presence and/or type of accompaniment, and the
organization of musical materials on intonation.

Bio:

Johanna Devaney is an assistant professor of music theory and
cognition at The Ohio State University. Her research applies a range
of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of musical performance,
motivated by a desire to understand how performers mediate listeners'
experience of music. Her work on extracting and analyzing performance
data, with a particular focus on intonation in the singing voice,
integrates the fields of music theory, music perception and cognition,
signal processing, and machine learning. She has released a number of
the tools she has developed in the open-source Automatic Music
Performance and Comparison Toolkit (www.ampact.org). Johanna completed
her PhD at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. She also
holds an M.Phil. degree from Columbia University, as well as an MA
from York University in Toronto. Before working at Ohio State, she was
a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for New Music and Audio
Technologies (CNMAT) at the University of California, Berkeley.

**

Speaker 2: Michael Mandel

Title: Strong models for understanding sounds in mixtures

Abstract:

Human abilities to understand sounds in mixtures, for example, speech
in noise, far outstrip current automatic approaches, despite recent
technological breakthroughs. This talk presents two projects that use
strong models of speech to begin to close this gap and discusses their
implications for musical applications. The first project investigates
the human ability to understand speech in noise using a new
data-driven paradigm. By formulating intelligibility prediction as a
classification problem, the model is able to learn the important
spectro-temporal features of speech utterances from the results of
listening test using real speech. It is also able to successfully
generalize to new recordings of the same and similar words. The second
project aims to reconstruct damaged or obscured speech similarly to
the way humans might, by using a strong prior model. In this case, the
prior model is a full large vocabulary continuous speech recognizer.
Posed as an optimization problem, this system finds the latent clean
speech features that minimize a combination of the distance to the
reliable regions of the noisy observation and the negative log
likelihood under the recognizer. It reduces both speech recognition
errors and the distance between the estimated speech and the original
clean speech.

Bio:

Michael I Mandel earned his BSc in Computer Science from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004 and his MS and PhD with
distinction in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University in 2006
and 2010 as a Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Presidential Scholar. From 2009 to 2010 he was an FQRNT Postdoctoral
Research Fellow in the Machine Learning laboratory at the Université
de Montréal. From 2010 to 2012 he was an Algorithm Developer at
Audience Inc, a company that has shipped over 350 million noise
suppression chips for cell phones. He is currently a Research
Scientist in Computer Science and Engineering at the Ohio State
University where he recently received an Outstanding Undergraduate
Research Mentor award. His research applies signal processing and
machine learning to computational audition problems including source
separation, robust speech recognition, and music classification and
tagging.


Other upcoming C4DM Seminars:

Richard Foss (Rhodes University), Thursday 1 May 2014, 2:00pm ("The
delights and dilemmas associated with sending audio over networks")
Matt McVicar (AIST Japan), Monday 12 May 2014, 3:30pm ("Towards the
automatic transcription of lyrics from audio")
Paul Weir (Aardvark Swift Recruitment, Audio director of Soho
Productions), Wednesday 21 May 2014, 3:00pm

Aled Jones becomes Youth Music Ambassador

 

Press Release

 

22^nd April, 2014

 

ALED JONES BECOMES YOUTH MUSIC AMBASSADOR

 

 

The National Foundation for Youth Music announced today that Aled Jones has become an Ambassador for the charity. Aled’s career, spanning over 25 years, has embraced singing, acting, dancing, writing as well as radio and TV presenting. 

 

He has become a regular face on television, most recently as presenter of ITV’s flagship morning programme ‘Daybreak’ and on the BBC’s ‘Songs of Praise’.  Aled launches his own new ITV show ‘Weekend’ this coming Saturday at 8.30am, ITV1.  He also presents a weekly Sunday music programme on Classic FM as well as his own chat show on BBC Radio Wales.

 

Aled says: “Music has played a huge part in my life from a very young age and has helped me to become the person I am.  Learning to sing and perform in public really helped to develop my confidence as well as my musical skills so I know how powerful it is to support disadvantaged young people as they explore and develop their creativity in making music.  Youth Music simply changes their lives.”

 

Youth Music’s Executive Director, Matt Griffiths says:  “We are thrilled that Aled has become one of our Ambassadors.  He combines his musical pedigree with a rare popular appeal and we know that music is in his heart.  For every child we support, we know there is at least one more waiting for our help. We are very grateful that Aled is helping us in this work to reach out to those who are missing out on the opportunity to make music.”

 

Aled recently talked about his reasons for helping Youth Music in a video thanking players of People’s Postcode Lottery for £100,000 in support of this work. People’s Postcode Lottery is a charity lottery and funding from players has contributed £39.9 million to good causes. Aled’s video can be viewed at http://www.youthmusic.org.uk/what-we-do/news/aled-jones-becomes-youth-music-ambassador.html

 

Youth Music is a national charity using music to transform the lives of over 90,000 disadvantaged children and young people every year. It supports over 400 music organisations around the country providing music-making opportunities, across all genres, for children living in challenging circumstances. These circumstances may include coping with disability or special educational needs, living in care, in poverty or in rural isolation. Projects range from supporting seriously ill young babies in hospitals to using music to help teenagers into further education or employment.

 

Born in Bangor, Aled Jones shot to fame as a 12-year-old for his version of Walking In The Air, the theme tune to Raymond Briggs' ‘The Snowman’.   The recording reached number 5 in the UK charts and made Aled the most famous chorister in the country.  He has recorded 29 albums, selling over 6 million copies, and has released two music-themed books, ‘Aled’s Favourite 40 Hymns’ and ‘Favourite Christmas Carols’. He has performed a variety of roles in musicals including Joseph in ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’ and Caractacus Potts in ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’.

 

 

ENDS

 

Pic Attached: Caption: Aled Jones has become an Ambassador for Youth Music

 

Notes to Editors:

 

ABOUT YOUTH MUSIC

 

·         Youth Music believes that music-making is life-changing and the charity wants the opportunity for music-making to be available to all children.   Every year, Youth Music provides more than 90,000 young people with the chance to take part in a local music project. 

 

·         Many of these children and young people face challenges in their lives including coping with disability, homelessness or living in care.  Others simply need help to develop their full musical talent and potential.

 

·         In addition to developing musical skills, Youth Music projects help young people to develop their creative and social skills, make positive contributions to their community and live happy, successful lives. Youth Music projects work across all music genres.

 

·         Youth Music currently supports over 400 music projects around the country

 

·         The charity knows that many more young people still need its help and continues to fundraise to realise its mission to ensure that all children and young people have access to life-changing music-making opportunities.

 

·         Find out more about the work of Youth Music by visiting www.youthmusic.org.uk

 

For enquiries about Youth Music please contact:

 

David O’Keeffe,

Media and PR Consultant,

Youth Music

 

E:   david.okeeffe@youthmusic.org.uk

T:   0207 902 1096

M:  07977 067576.

 

 

 

David O’Keeffe
Media and PR Consultant
..........................................................
National Foundation for Youth Music

T 020 7902 1096

M :07977 067576

website     twitter    facebook

Join us in supporting life-changing music-making.

Donate here

..........................................................................
Suites 3-5, Swan Court, 9 Tanner Street, London, SE1 3LE
Registered charity 1075032
...........................................................................

 

 

 

Frontiers | Gender and the performance of music | Cognitive Science

http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00276/full#h10

Reminder - Deadline 15th April: CFP - 9th Art of Record Production Conference: Oslo Dec 4-6 2014

CFP 2014 ARP Conference

The 9th Art of Record Production Conference:

Record Production in the Internet Age

December 4-6, 2014

University of Oslo

Our conference panel is pleased to invite proposals for papers dealing with the following broad thematic areas:

A. Recording aesthetics

The short yet intensive history of record production has revealed an indisputable relationship between recording technology and the finished sound recording. Magnetic tape became a harbinger of a technological revolution in the 1950s, while digital technology made its mark on the sound of the 1980s and, in more recent years, digital audio workstation (DAW), which has had a profound effect on the musical output.

• How do we theorise and analyse the musical output of the historical as well as the contemporary use of music technology in recording studios, as well as in concert settings?
• What kind of recording aesthetics has grown out of the new virtual musical arenas (such as the Internet), as a consequence of new multi-medial contexts?

Of particular interest are papers that address aspects of acoustic versus electronic sound (similarities and differences, affordances, perception, use of virtual sound sources etc), studio versus laptop production, and live versus recorded formats.

B. Musical Ownership and Authorship

Contemporary culture is characterized by changing means and modes of music production, distribution and consumption. This is partly due to the new musical arenas of the Internet. A crucial issue however is the potential mismatch between these new practices and existing intellectual property law.

•  How might we better describe and understand the relationship between law and practice? Should the jurisdiction within this field be altered?
•  How do “alternative” notions of ownership and authorship, based on borrowing and sharing, relate to the music-economical means for survival within the music industry?
• How is the fair use doctrine enacted in practice, what are the implications of this practice for music makers and scholars, and what should be considered to be “fair” in given contexts?

We are particularly interested in the ways in which the attribution of authorship is legitimized in cases where a music recording is a collaborative product, either in the form of a performer/producer/songwriter/engineer-collaboration or a virtual “collaboration” through music recycling. To what extent, then, is the traditional “author figure” a relevant concept in collaborative contexts?

C. Virtual archives and new platforms for distribution

The advent of digital technologies has created new environments for the distribution and reception of music. As a consequence, user patterns, music delivery platforms, distribution and business models have dramatically changed over the last decade, and continue to evolve. Among the questions addressed in this section are:

• What are the roles of archives and how do we conceptualize this in a situation where listeners may have access to most of music history's record productions 24/7/365?  
• How do digital platforms for online communication and distribution, such as streaming services and social media, influence the use and dissemination of music in contemporary music culture?
• In which ways do the various digital platforms for music distribution impact on the production of music (formats, recording aesthetics, sound quality etc.)?

The relationship between professional and user-generated content in this development is of paramount importance. To this end, we ask: How do professional and user-generated services interact?

D. Music Production in a Transcultural Space

Music production, both in professional studios and home recording facilities, are increasingly implicated in transcultural contexts. Of particular relevance is the use of interactive media by musicians and groups in both regional and international contexts. In recent years, new forms of networking have afforded forming and sustaining new communities across geographical and stylistic boundaries.

•  What are the characteristics of the musical trends, performances, production practices and approaches to recording typical of such diverse, globally distributed communities?
• Moreover, if transculturalism emphasizes the significance of continual interactivity among certain communities, how do recordings express this? To what extent do such recordings reflect cultural diversity?
• Is there a meaningful relationship between particular places and particular sounds? What are the musical or sonic components forming such a regional identity?

The study of record production reveals divisions based on cultural, racial, gendered, or socio-economic classifications in countless ways. This section seeks to address the fascinating phenomena of recording practices, traditions, and productions within a transcultural context.

***

In addition to the above themes and topics, we also welcome proposals for presentations and posters exploring aspects of music production, performances and practical demonstrations on other topics related to the Art of Record Production.

We invite contributions from any relevant academic perspective, within and outside fields, such as popular music studies, ethnomusicology, performance studies, communication and media studies, cultural studies, historical musicology, the history of technology, ergonomics, acoustics and psychoacoustics, music theory, music cognition, music and music technology education, and the philosophies of music, mediation and technology. Please include a note on methodology where appropriate, and an indication of the theme (A, B, C or D) your work is intending to address. In addition to this we would also like a short indication of your institutional affiliation.

Papers or demonstrations that require recording / studio / 5.1 playback facilities are also encouraged but selection will be subject to a feasibility study by the conference panel at the University of Oslo.

Proposals for individual papers and poster presentations should not exceed 300 words and should be in Word Document, Rich Text File or Text file formats (doc, docx, rtf or txt files).

We are using the web based tool Easy Chair to organize the submissions to ARP 2014. Please create an account and upload your submission to Easy Chair. Follow this link:  https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=arp20140

You will be asked to choose which of these 4 tracks (themes) to submit your paper to:

Recording aesthetics

Musical ownership and authorship

Virtual archives and new platforms for distribution

Music production in a transcultural space

If you have already submitted your abstract, that's fine. We will import this into the system manually.

Presenters at the conference must be members of the Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production. It costs £15 (about US$25, CAN$28, AU$28 or NOK155) for the annual subscription and you can join at: ASARP

The deadline for proposals is April 15, 2014.

Anne Danielsen                     Host of the 9th Art of Record Production Conference

Stan Hawkins                        Host of the 9th Art of Record Production Conference

Hans T. Zeiner-Henriksen    Host of the 9th Art of Record Production Conference

Katia Isakoff                           Director of the Art of Record Production Conference

Simon Zagorski-Thomas      Director of the Art of Record Production Conference

Seminar announcement: Kurt Jacobson in CS 4.14 on 2/4/2014

Dear all,

On Wednesday, April 2nd at 2:00pm, Kurt Jacobson of The Echo Nest will
present a seminar in CS 4.14 (the Computer Science building) at Queen
Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS. Details of
the talk will be announced later, but a biography of the speaker
follows.

Information on how to access the school can be found at
http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/about/campus-map.php. If you are coming
from outside Queen Mary, please let me know, so that I can provide
detailed directions and make sure no-one is stuck outside the doors.
If you wish to be added to / removed from our mailing list as an
individual recipient, please send me an email and I'll be happy to do
so.

Speaker:

Kurt Jacobson

Bio:

Kurt Jacobson is a senior engineer at The Echo Nest where he works on
developing the worlds most advanced music informatics system. During
his tenure at the Echo Nest Kurt has worked on database architectures,
data collection, natural language processing, machine learning,
personalization and prediction. Kurt completed his PhD at Queen
Mary's Centre for Digital Music in 2010 where he focused on studying
music-related network structures found on the Web and Semantic Web
technologies as they relate to describing music. He went on to serve
as the primary developer for the Linkedbrainz project before accepting
his current position at the Echo Nest."

Future C4DM Seminars:

Johanne Devaney and Michael Mandel (Ohio State University), Friday 2
May 2014, 2:00pm
Matt McVicar (AIST Japan), Monday 12 May 2014, 3:30pm
Paul Weir (Aardvark Swift Recruitment, Audio director of Soho
Productions), Wednesday 21 May 2014, 3:00pm

for Papers: International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology (SysMus14)

Dear all,

The Music, Mind and Brain group at Goldsmiths, University of London is
pleased to host the Seventh International Conference of Students of
Systematic Musicology (SysMus14) from September 18th-20th, 2014.
SysMus is an annual conference organized by students for students. It
provides postgraduate students opportunities to present their research
as oral papers or posters and to meet and discuss their own research,
while also enjoying keynote speeches by internationally renowned
researchers.



SysMus14 will provide early career researchers a meeting place to
communicate their research and exchange ideas and concerns, while also
acting as a hub for fruitful discussions. It will serve as an
intersection point for many different kinds of research and approaches
related to the empirical study of music.



Systematic musicology is an umbrella term for a wide range of research
on themes including, but not limited to, music perception and
cognition, musical structure, music education, music therapy, music
and emotion, music and language, acoustics and psychoacoustics, and
computer music. Systematic musicology combines a mix of methodologies
from the sciences and humanities, including empirical psychology,
sociology, cognitive sciences and computing to neurosciences,
acoustics and physiology.



PhD and Masters level students are invited to submit an abstract (max
350 words) by May 1st, 2014 following the guidelines provided on the
SysMus14 website at http://www.musicmindbrain.com/#!sysmus-2014/cfmp.
Abstracts will be subject to a double-blind peer-review by a
Scientific Committee consisting of doctoral students and post-doctoral
researchers representing different fields related to the study of
systematic musicology. Decisions will be announced by June 20th. Talks
will be 20 minutes long, followed by a 10-minute discussion; posters
will be displayed throughout the conference and presented during a
designated poster session.



Further information about the abstract format, important dates,
registration, the venue, accommodation and travel is available online
on the SysMus14 website. Any specific questions may be directed to the
Organising Committee at sysmus14@gmail.com



We are looking forward to welcoming you to London in September!




Kelly Jakubowski, director

The SysMus14 Organising Committee

Fwd: Music in hospitals gets funding boost

 

 

 

Press Release

20^th March 2014

 

NATIONAL YOUTH MUSIC CHARITY ANNOUNCES GRANTS OF OVER £3.5M

MUSIC PROJECTS IN HOSPITAL SETTINGS AMONG THE 69 PROJECTS BENEFITING

 

The National Foundation for Youth Music today announced grants totalling £3.5m to 69 music organisations around the country. This brings the total amount released this year to £9.2m. 

Youth Music supports music projects working with young people in challenging circumstances, from music-making for children in hospital settings, choirs featuring children in care, music mentoring in special schools and lullaby composition projects for young children with development delay. The charity currently supports over 400 projects across England, reaching out to more than 90,000 children and young people every year.

NEW MUSIC PROJECTS

The latest grants will kick-start a range of new music projects including ones for young carers, children living in rural isolation and female victims of trafficking.

Music in hospital settings

London-based charity Key Changes has been awarded a grant of £46,500 to run music workshops on adolescent psychiatric intensive care wards with a national provider of adolescent in-patient psychiatric services. Specially trained professional musicians and producers will support patients aged 13 - 18 with song writing and music production as part of the hospitals' structured therapeutic timetables. The activities are designed to contribute to the young peoples' wellbeing and recovery through developing creative, communication, social and technical skills, improving confidence and self-esteem, and opening new pathways to musical opportunities in the community after discharge from hospital.

Peter Leigh says:  "We are thrilled that Youth Music is supporting this project which will provide positive activities for young people detained in hospital at a pivotal time in their lives. The work will build on a pilot service delivered on boys' and girls' wards in Woking which has already seen improvements in patients' engagement with therapeutic activities and brightened the mood of the wards. Expanding the geographic scope of the project will establish a unique perspective on the impact of music in adolescent in-patient care, and develop a valuable evidence base that can be shared with the health and social care sector."

The 'Musicians in Children's Hospitals' project run by OPUS Music Community Interest Company (CIC), has been awarded a grant of £97,800 to bring weekly music-making to the bedsides of children and young people at Derbyshire, Nottingham and Leicester Children's Hospitals as well as children's wards at Kings Mill Hospital, Mansfield. Previous work by OPUS has demonstrated wide-ranging benefits for the patients, their visitors and staff.  Young patients who would otherwise miss out will now gain opportunities for self-expression, autonomy and musical education through regular music-making activity alongside OPUS Musicians.

Nick Cutts, Director of OPUS Music CIC, says: "We are delighted that Youth Music is supporting OPUS' development of our Music in Healthcare practice.  We have witnessed the wonderful impacts of music-making in children's hospitals over the past few years, a practice developed through European training partnerships led by the world renowned Musique & Santé in Paris.  We are looking forward to the continued exploration of hospitals as collaborative music-making venues, helping children and young people and their families to discover music as a relief from illness and as a long-term activity both during and beyond their hospitalisation."

Research indicates significant benefits

Research has shown that music interventions in hospital settings can have significant benefits. The results of a study by Indiana University School of Nursing published in January 2014 indicated positive outcomes for young cancer patients aged 11-24 who spent three weeks producing a music video. They found that patients were able to cope better with the difficulties presented by their medical condition and improved relationships with family and friends were also indicated.

Youth Music has also awarded grants to support Gloucester Music Makers research into how young children with cochlear implants experience sound and music. Artsdepot, London has received a grant to support their work with Noah’s Hospice, which has highlighted a lack of music provision for life-limited or life-threatened young people

REGIONAL FORMULA ENSURES FAIR DISTRIBUTION OF FUNDS

There has been much public debate recently about regional funding allocations for the arts.

Youth Music grants are made available following an application process and are assessed on merit. The charity places a strong emphasis on its role as an intelligent funder, ensuring a fair distribution of funding throughout the regions of England. Over 45% of funded projects take place in the top 20% most deprived local authority areas.

Youth Music applies a regional allocation formula to its grant-making process which aims to provide an equitable balance of funding across the regions.  The funding does not merely relate to population densities but takes account of regional deprivation, ensuring that matters such as rural isolation and other geographical issues are taken into account.

Youth Music has also provided additional funding for its strategic ‘Musical Inclusion’ grant-holders, who are charged with identifying areas where there is little activity taking place (‘cold spots’), developing sustainable provision and working with emerging practitioners who are nurtured to deliver future activity.

Matt Griffiths, Youth Music’s Executive Director says: “We continue to do our best to target our funding where it is most needed. Part of this process is to ensure that we regularly update our information on where music provision is lacking geographically and to identify categories of young people in challenging circumstances who might otherwise miss out. In this round we have announced grants to help female survivors of child trafficking and others who suffer from severe psychiatric illness, along with young people living in rural isolation.  We wish all these projects well in delivering high-quality music making programmes that will have a very positive impact on these young people’s lives.”

 

ENDS

PICS ATTACHED: (relevant permissions received)

Caption: Opus Musician Richard Kensington with young hospital patient

 

Caption: A patient taking part in a Key Changes music workshop

 

ABOUT MUSIC IN HOSPITALS

·         Youth Music funds a variety of work in hospital settings, including work in neo natal wards in Gloucestershire (http://network.youthmusic.org.uk/learning/blogs/mark-harmer/working-premature-babies-and-their-parents-gloucester-hospital) and in Derbyshire hospitals (provided by OPUS) (http://network.youthmusic.org.uk/learning/blogs/cuttsn/sunshine-my-heart-–-film-documenting-impacts-opus’-music-children’s-hospitals-)

 

·         More information on the research relating to the benefits of music on young cancer patients can be found at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.28355/abstract

 

·         A BBC News report on this research can be found at:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25878958

 

ABOUT YOUTH MUSIC

·         Youth Music believes that music-making is life-changing and the charity wants the opportunity for music-making to be available to all children.   Every year, Youth Music provides more than 90,000 young people with the chance to take part in a local music project. 

 

·         Many of these children and young people face challenges in their lives including coping with disability, homelessness or living in care.  Others simply need help to develop their full musical talent and potential.

 

·         In addition to developing musical skills, Youth Music projects help young people to develop their creative and social skills, make positive contributions to their community and live happy, successful lives. Youth Music projects work across all music genres.

 

·         Youth Music currently supports over 400 music projects around the country

 

·         The charity knows that many more young people still need its help and continues to fundraise to realise its mission to ensure that all children and young people have access to life-changing music-making opportunities.

 

·         Find out more about the work of Youth Music by visiting www.youthmusic.org.uk

 

 

For enquiries about Youth Music please contact:

 

David O’Keeffe,

Media and PR Consultant,

Youth Music

 

E:   david.okeeffe@youthmusic.org.uk

T:   0207 902 1096

M:  07977 067576.

 

KEY CHANGES

For further enquiries about Key Changes, please contact

Peter Leigh

General Manager

Key Changes

 

E: peter@keychanges.org.uk

T:  020 7549 8172

M: 07985 249 398

 

www.keychanges.org.uk

 

OPUS Music Community Interest Company

For further enquiries about Opus Music, please contact

Nick Cutts

Director

OPUS Music Community Interest Company

 

E:  nick@opusmusic.org

T:  01773 861630

M: 07786 157515

 

www.opusmusic.org