That’s a wrap on 2024! Thank you to all our supporters, funders, partners and young people for a fantastic year. We’ll be signing off for the festive break on Friday 20 December and logging back in on Monday 6 January 2025. To say goodbye to 2024 here are some thoughts from our Chief Executive Hester Cockcroft.
Speaking to our audience at the end of our autumn fundraising concert recently, I looked out across the magnificent Fishmongers’ Hall and saw a room full of amazing people. Firstly, I saw many of the fantastic individuals, trusts and foundations, public funders and partners who together make our work possible. Several of our valued Patrons were there too: Thomas Gould, Gavin Higgins, Tasmin Little and Ayanna Witter-Johnson. Our brilliant Young Sounds team of staff and trustees were out in force too, the most committed, creative and collegiate group of people I’ve ever worked with. And most of importantly of all, the wonderful young musicians who’d performed that night, and created brand-new music for the occasion as well. Because of course they were the reason we were all there!
2024 has been a game-changing year for us in several ways. We’re growing significantly in size and impact, working with more young people, surpassing our long-held ambition to support 1,000 young musicians across the UK!
In the spring we announced our change of name to Young Sounds UK and were delighted by the response from our supporters and partners, with Alumna Patron Jess Gillam making a brilliant speech at our launch event at Fender Guitars. Opportunities created for young musicians this term included our Improvisation Day with Indian Classical, Jazz and Folk sessions at Leeds Conservatoire, the first of two Attune projects at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and two great fundraising concerts in London and Oxford.
We were delighted to announce the next phase of our mentoring programme Exchange, in partnership with all five BBC Orchestras in the summer. Young musicians and their professional musician mentors came together at the Royal Albert Hall in August for the first Insight Day, which included talking to conductor Dalia Stasevska and singer Jamie Barton before they stepped onto the Proms stage that night. Performance opportunities for Thrive programme participants included a fundraiser at the London College of Contemporary Music and at Loseley Park in Surrey. Meanwhile our Discover training also continued apace: we’ve trained over 800 music educators on how to spot early musical potential in the last 12 months.
The new academic year began with the exciting announcement that Young Sounds UK were delivering the Department of Education’s Music Opportunities Pilot, building on our existing Connect programme to support 1,000 young people from low-income families over four years. It was great to celebrate the programme’s journey so far at our inaugural Connect conference. The autumn also saw a brilliant event at the Confetti Institute in Nottingham for songwriters, producers and rock and pop musicians on our Thrive programme. We ran our second training weekend for Mentors, many of whom are Alumni, like our latest Trustee, Morro Barry! Our long-term collaboration with the BBC continued in October with our fifth Awards Day with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Maida Vale Studios, where 70 young people came together from across the UK to play side by side with the orchestra or learn about audio production. Other young people took to the stage to help raise money for our work in beautiful rural Yorkshire, whilst some living further south joined Patron Thomas Gould for a brilliant violin masterclass.
As we look forward to 2025 our absolute focus remains on giving the highest-quality support for the individual needs of the young musicians we’re here for. Helping them achieve their dreams is what drives us every day! I’d like to extend our sincere thanks to everyone who helps us to help them.
Have a great festive break, and we look forward to seeing you soon.
Hester
Chief Executive, Young Sounds UK
