In 2011, Making Music successfully campaigned to save the Wakefield music collection, one of the most important national collections in the UK, used by thousands of amateur music groups.
Following cuts to spending in 2011, the Wakefield music and drama library, one of the biggest and most important collections of music in the country with over 500,000 scores, was threatened with closure and the break-up of a vital centralised resource for amateur musicians.
Making Music members responded in force, with over 2,000 members writing letter and emails to the Local Authority, library, Councillors, MPs and MEPs. Jennifer Moorhouse (of member group Todmorden Orchestra) was quoted in The Guardian as the campaign progressed:
The response has been huge, and Making Music has been superb in rallying support at very short notice. Let's hope the collection can be saved.
Following strenuous campaigning from library staff alongside Making Music CE Robin Osterley, volunteer Judith Sunderland and over 2,000 of our member groups, the music collection was saved, with the entire set being moved to Huddersfield library to be managed by social enterprise Fresh Horizons.
As a result, one of the largest centralised collections of music in the country remains available to all music groups for hire, wherever they are in the UK!
